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An Illustrated M a 


15 cents 


“Tempest over Africa,” by Achmed Abdullah 

Wilbur Hall, H, Bedford 'Jones, William Chester, 
Fulton Grant, Robert Mill, Carl Sandburg 



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1 



U BLUE BOOK 




OCTOBER. 1936 


MAGAZINE 


VOL. 63. NO. 6 


Tempest over Africa 

Illustrated by L. R. Gustavson 

JGoga of the Wilderness 

Illustrated by Jeremy Cannon 


Two Exceptional Serials 

By Achmed Abdullah 6 
By William L. Chester 102 


Noteworthy Short Stories 

By Blaine Miller and Jean Dupont Miller 29 


Aboard the Clipper — 1936 

Illustrated by L. R. Gustavson 

Arms and Men 

XXI — The First Submarine. Illustrated by George Avison 

Just Like That! 

Illustrated by Monte Crews 

Half-Pint Goes Noble 

Illustrated by Austin Briggs 

The Nail and the Necklace 

Decorations by John Richard Flanagan 

Trigger Men 

Illustrated by E. II. Kuhlhoff 


By H. Bedford-Jones 38 

By Robert R. Mill 46 

By Fulton Grant 57 

By Charles Gilson 92 

By Eustace Cockrell 96 


A Deeply Interesting Novelette 


The Pit that He Digged 

Illustrated by Peter Kuhlhoff 

Prize Stories of Real Experience 

My Life at Sea 

With an etching by Yngve Edward Soderberg 

Hold that Tiger! 

A famous trainer’s remarkable story. 

Blasted Underground 

This miner is lucky to be alive. 

Swordsman’s Hazard 

Hunting wild boar with a swotd. 


By Wilbur Hall 72 


By Bill Adams 130 
By Mabel Stark 137 
By Dick Groman 140 
By Duris Dejong 142 


The Sailor’s Scrapbook 
Made in America 

Morrissey and the Russian Sailor. 


By Coulton Waugh 5 
Edited bv Carl Sandburg 70 


Cover Design Painted by Herbert Morton Stoops 


Except for stories of Real Experience, all stories and novels printed herein are fiction 
and are intended as such. They do not refer to real characters or to actual events. 
If the name of any living person is used, it is a coincidence. 


THE McCALL COMPANY. 

William B. Warner, President and Treaaurer 
Marvin Pierce, Vice-Pretident 
Francis Hutter, Secratary 

Published monthly, at McCall St.. Dayton, Ohio. Subscription Offices — Dayton. Ohio. Editorial and Executive Offices — 230 Park Ave., 
New York. N. Y. THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE— October. 1930. Vol. LXIJl. No. G. Copyright, 193G. by The McCall Company in the 
United States and Great Britain. Entered as second-class matter, November 12. 1930, at the Post Office at Dayton, Ohio, under the 
Act of March 3. 1897. Subscription Price. $1.50 per year in L ; . S. and Canada; foreign postage $1.00. For change of address, give us 
four weeks notice and send old address as well as new. Special Note: Each issue of The Blue Book Magazine is copyrighted. Any re- 
publication of the matter appearing in the magazine, either wholly or in part, is not permitted except by special authorization. 

Special Notice to Writers and Artists; Manuscripts and art material submitted for publication In the Blue Book Magazine will be re- 
ceived only on the understanding that the publisher and editors shall not be responsible for loss or injury thereto while such manu- 
scripts or art material are in the publisher's possession or in transit. Printed in U.S.A. 

2 



Publisher, The Blue Book Magazine 
DONALD KENNICOTT. Editor 



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4 




From a Sailor’s 
Scrapbook 

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5 


Tempest Over 



By 

Achmed Abdullah 


The words came easily 
to Ills brain and tongue: 
“A land so strange my 
heart grows still — 
With gorge and rock 
and dust.” 


A GIGANTIC Galla strode ahead. 
“Give way!” he yelled. “Give 
. way, by the Trinity! Give way, 
by the Savior the Adored! Give way, 
0 unspeakable ones, 0 eaters of dirt!” 

His words of command boomed in- 
solently ; and the Ethiopian mob splashed 
sidewise, like a puddle beneath booted 
foot, as, accompanied by his retinue, a 
ras — a feudal Amharic chief, fat and 
bushy-bearded and statuesque, crowned 
by a large floppy silver-gray felt hat and 

Copyright, 1936, by The McCall Company (T 


garbed in skin-tight white trousers and 
short cloak of deep-blue velvet — came 
down Addis Ababa’s main street astride 
his horse — a sorry nag of a horse, ham- 
mer-headed and peak-withered and flea- 
bitten, that had never known brush or 
curry-comb, but was gayly caparisoned, 
the saddle-cloth embroidered with scar- 
let and purple and gold, little silver bells 
jingling on bridle and reins. 

Blue Book Magazine). All rights reserved. 


6 




<> Africa 


The famous author 
of “The Swinging 
Caravan" and“The 
Mating of the 
Blades” here gives 
us the fascinating 
story of an Ameri- 
can’s extraordi- 
nary quest in the 
Dark Continent. 


“Give way, O fathers of dogs ! ” 

Neither to left the ras looked, nor to 
right. His pride would not let him. For 
was he not cousin-in-blood to His Im- 
perial Majesty, Haile Selassie, the Em- 
peror of Emperors of Abyssinia? Was 
he not, by the same token, a direct 
descendant of Solomon, resplendent King 
of the Jews, and his royal paramour, 
Queen Balkis of Sheba? Was he not a 
member of the historic clan whose para- 
Illustrated by mount lord was known as the Lion of 
L. R. Gustavson the Tribe of Judah? 


7 



8 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


Thus he rode along haughtily. Sur- 
rounded by his henchmen, over a thou- 
sand of them, a barefooted rabble of 
odorous kinky-haired warriors, their 
rifles and spears and broad-bladed dag- 
gers’ glistening in the rays of the strong 
tropical sun, their shroud-like shammas 
reaching to their knees and flowing be- 
hind them as they ran and hopped and 
leaped to keep up with their master’s 
fast-trotting mount. Preceded by the 
Galla who carried the nobleman’s round 
shield and sword — an ancient crescent- 
shaped sword forged centuries before 
Europe’s chivalry had gone on Crusade ; 
a wicked sword that from time imme- 
morial had bravely fought for Christen- 
dom against Moslem and pagan ; a 
preposterously long sword that again and 
again got caught between the man’s 
thin legs and the folds of his shamma, 
though in no way interfering with his ar- 
rogant yells : 

“Give way, by St. George! Give way, 
0 leprous ones ! Give way, by the Trin- 
ity ! ” 

The shout was taken up by the re- 
tainers in a full-throated guttural chorus : 

“Give way, by the Trinity ! Give way, 
by the Cross! Give way, O ignoble 
ones ! ” 

They cut through the crowd as a 
knife cuts through cheese. With demo- 
cratic impartiality their rifle-butts and 
spear-hafts belabored the backs and 
thighs and heads of merchant and porter, 
priest and beggar, free man and slave. 

“Give way, O camel-spawn! Give 
way ! ” 

Pushing, jostling, elbowing each other, 
the men-at-arms disappeared down a 
narrow winding alley. The last that 
could be seen, bobbing high above the 
perspiring retinue, was the ras’ wide- 
brimmed gray hat. 

A small boy thumbed his nose at its 
haughty wearer. 

“Bah!” he cried. “Fatted ass!” 

Then somebody laughed. So did 
somebody else. Mirth rose in gusts — ir- 
repressible, hectic, baroque, bubbling. 
Entirely primitive. For these people 
were Africans. Life to them was sweet 
— nor death much to be feared, as long 
as it was exciting. 

S O, not many minutes later, necks 
craned, eyes stared, mouths split to 
even fuller and noisier cachinnations as 
across the road the door of the Grand 
Hotel de Paris was suddenly flung open ; 
as it revealed M. Zado Bagdadian, his 


brown spade-shaped beard thrust out like 
a battering-ram, gesticulating wildly with 
nervous hairy hands, and addressing a 
tall young white man whom his servants 
had pushed across the threshold and 
down the front steps. 

“Bandit!” screamed the Armenian in 
strongly accented English. “Vagabond!” 

“Aw — dry up, whiskers!” advised the 
young man. 

“Thief ! Assassin ! Ah,” — reaching the 
limit of his English vocabulary of vitu- 
peration and translating from the Arme- 
nian, — “you’re as crooked as a pig’s tail.” 
The other was amused. 

“Say,” he replied, “when it comes to 
swapping compliments, I know a few my- 
self, you lousy little so-and-so ! ” 

H IS words rolled on richly, eloquent- 
ly ; and the mob crowded in, listen- 
ing, making comment. 

“A feringhee, a foreigner,” announced 
a caravan-man with the air of one im- 
parting superior wisdom. 

“An Amerikani feringhee,” a lean- 
shanked Arussi cattle-drover quoted even 
deeper wisdom. 

“A most violent and lawless Amerikani 
feringhee,” a turbaned priest of the Cop- 
tic Church gave judgment with the sac- 
erdotal unction of his calling. “How do 
I know? Look at his hair — red! Ob- 
serve the color of his eyes — storm-blue! 
Be pleased to .consider his features — 
snub-nosed and freckled! And though 
I am unable to understand his barbarous 
language, yet have the saints granted 
me enlightenment — harken to the ex- 
quisite saltiness of his abuse!” 

Instinctively the priest had guessed it. 
For the young man was telling the poly- 
glot hotel proprietor exactly what he 
thought of him; was telling him in the 
raucous, slangy, unpurged diction of 
New York’s Second Avenue. 

“Shut up!” he roared as, stammering 
angry words, the bearded face was thrust 
close to his. “Say it with flowers — not 
with a mouthful of garlic!” 

The Armenian trembled with fury. 
“Pirate!” he exclaimed. “Loathsome 
and unbeautiful Yankee hyena!” 

The young man grinned. “Say,” was 
his rejoinder, “when it comes to matching 
manly beauty, you aren’t just a daffodil 
yourself.” 

“Crook ! You refuse to pay ! ” 
“Because I’ve nothing to pay with— 
see? Can’t help being broke, can I?” 
“Then why come to my hotel ?” 

“Had to go some place.” 


TEMPEST OVER AFRICA 


9 



A hand dropped on his shoulder; a voice said: “Who may you be?” 


“My hotel is for gentlemen, not for 
tramps. Eleven days’ room and board 
you owe. And champagne last night!” 

“Champagne, my foot! Tasted like 
hogwash to me.” 

“Aughrr!” the Armenian screeched 
like an enraged parrot. 

“Ah — take it easy! You’re keeping 
my baggage, aren’t you?” 

“And what does your baggage contain? 
Four neckties, six pairs of socks, three 
shirts — ” 

“High time you had a clean shirt.” 

This was more than Bagdadian was 
able to bear. He hurled himself against 
the American, who sidestepped neatly 
and, as neatly, let him have it — bamm! 
— on the point of the chin. The man 
dropped like a log; and at once the 
servants rushed to his assistance. 

Perhaps there were too many of them 
for their comfort. They interfered with 
each other. They tripped and hit each 
other in their eagerness to get at the 
young American, — Jim M ’Gregor was 
his name, — who was perfectly safe in 
striking whatever head came within 
reach. 

His fists went like flails. So he did 
very well, bloodying a nose here, blacken- 
ing an eye there, really enjoying him- 
self with the onlookers pressing in more 
closely to get a better view, and laughing 
and cheering and making ribald com- 
ment. And an Asiatic among the Afri- 
can throng, a hawkish Afghan employed 
as doorman at the British legation, gave 
as his considered opinion that — by Allah ! 
— this red-haired madman was the very 
pick of all the tall swank battling lads ; 
that — by Allah and by Allah! — he was 
the sort whom a keen man, out for 


sport of foray and raid, would choose to 
ride with side by side. 

“Or to walk with side by side,” sug- 
gested one pretty, golden-skinned girl 
who was hanging on to a Somali’s arm. 
“Aye! With the same night of stars as 
canopy.” 

“Close your mouth lest your tongue 
catch cold, O creature of shameless be- 
getting!” her lover admonished her. 

Painfully he tweaked her right ear, 
while an old half-breed Arab woman said 
that — by the crimson pig’s bristles! — 
the girl was right. 

“Waht” she went on, pointing at 
M’Gregor whose fists, again and again, 
were finding aching marks. “A lion has 
come to Addis Ababa!” 

“A lion indeed ! ” agreed a ruffianly 
Tigrin muleteer. “A regal, jungle lion! 
Hat ,” — encouragingly at the American, 
his voice peaking in a sharp treble, — 
“power to your teeth! Power to your 
claws, O lion fcringhee!” 

“A lion,” remarked the Afghan, “who 
.will presently be pulled down by the 
little, little jackals!” 

For numbers were beginning to tell. 
Straining, wrestling, grappling, cursing, 
M’Gregor fell to the ground. A porter 
was sitting astride his chest. A second 
was kicking him in the ribs. A third 
danced about, swinging a club and watch- 
ing his chance for a knockout blow. 

The Afghan grew indignant. 

“ Alhamdulillah !” he growled — and he 
promptly came to the rescue. 

He picked up half a dozen jagged 
stones. He threw them with a hillman’s 
strength and accurate aim; and when 
momentarily the attackers gave way, he 
grasped the American by the arm, helped 


10 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


him to his feet and jerked him into the 
thick of the onlooking mob that closed 
about them like a black-and-brown sea. 

A FEW seconds earlier the Armenian 
had drawn a whistle and blown a 
shrill blast ; and, “Quick, saheb, quick 1 ” 
came the Afghan’s warning in English as 
police approached at a rapid pace, while 
instinctively, as the world over, the mob 
became frightened and surged into mo- 
tion, carrying M’Gregor along. 

So, woolly polls and shaven polls, tur- 
baned heads and tarbushed heads, bobbed 
crazily. Ragged cloaks and torn bur- 
nouses flared out like flags in a meeting 
of winds. Muscular naked legs moved 
up and down grotesquely, woodenly — 
faster and faster, on and on, off and 
away into a spider’s web of dark, miry, 
unpaved alleys, a sinuous, sardonic wind- 
ing of passages, a maze of drab, squat, 
fetid houses, built of mud and roofed 
with sheets of galvanized iron, and the 
policemen beginning their lumbering pur- 
suit, panting, swearing, perspiring, shout- 
ing: 

“Stop — in the name of the law ! Stop 
— in the name of the Emperor’s Maj- 
esty ! ” 

But since bare feet can run more swift- 
ly and trip less in slimy puddles than 
booted feet, the view-halloo of the police 
echoed fainter and fainter ; the mob 
continuing at top speed, finally splitting 
and deploying; nor Jim M’Gregor ceas- 
ing his wild gallop until he reached the 
dusty Post Office Square and the Greek 
cafes that lined it. 

Greek cafes scented with the pungent 
aroma of absinthe, the cloying aroma 
of anise, the acrid aroma of ancient Hel- 
lenic cheese and the greasy aroma of 
goat-flesh masquerading as spring lamb. 

Greek cafes steeped in ancestral filth 
that went back to Homer and Socrates 
and centuries beyond, yet doing a thriv- 
ing trade. For they were the local social 
Mecca as well as the local stock and gos- 
sip exchange of all the motley human 
driftwood that in recent years had come 
to Addis Ababa — had sailed from Liver- 
pool or Marseilles or Hamburg or Naples 
to Djibouti, the port of French Somali- 
land, had thence traveled by railroad, 
the only railroad in Ethiopia; a wary 
railroad that ran only during daytime, 
since at night somber naked oil-smeared 
Danakil warriors had a sportive habit of 
tearing up whole sections of track and 
then, when the train creaked to a sudden 
halt, throwing heavy spears through the 


windows and taking most bloody toll, 
thereby gaining a great deal of credit 
amongst the dusky maidens of their vil- 
lages. 

Once in a while these same Danakils 
were bold enough to try a daylight raid. 
To try — and succeed. To carry off, oc- 
casionally, a European whom they would 
kill in a lengthy and — so, at least, it 
seemed to them — humorous manner. 

Still, in spite of the grisly dangers on 
the way and a plethora of discomforts, 
fever and dirt and wretched food and 
brackish water after they had got to 
Addis Ababa, the foreigners kept on com- 
ing. They came like vultures to the reek 
of carrion, since there were rumors — and 
more than mere rumors — of petroleum, 
precious minerals, vast fertile stretches 
where the best cotton and coffee could 
be planted. Thus bankers arrived, and 
usurers, merchants, traveling salesmen, 
oil experts, mining prospectors — all the 
elements of that warring, illogical motley 
which tramps through the pages of his- 
tory under the hypocritical banner of 
modern progress. Too, a whispering 
legion of spies. 

F OR this was the last of free Africa. 

Christian Africa — friendly, inoffensive 
Africa that minded its own business. 
What of it? 

It was a rich country. It was, further- 
more, almost devoid of up-to-date arma- 
ments of war. Therefore, if a really good 
excuse could be discovered — 

In former decades it would have been 
deemed plenty provocation if a trader or 
a missionary had had his gullet slit by 
some obliging local roughneck — the lat- 
ter, often as not, having been paid for his 
bloody deed by a secret-service agent of 
a European power. Then a punitive ex- 
pedition would have been sent, and quite 
a few thousand colored people — referred 
to as fanatics, because they defended 
their homes — would have been killed. 
Finally, amidst great pomp and circum- 
stance and patriotic huzzas, the capital 
of the latest colony would have watched 
the unfurling of the Union Jack — or per- 
haps the tricolor of the French Republic 
or the black- white-red of former Imperial 
Germany or Italy’s gay bunting. 

But in these present degenerate days, 
with the League of Nations insisting on 
a veneer of international ethics, this 
sort of pretext was no longer considered 
proper. A really sound reason had to 
obtain before a stronger nation had the 
moral right — indeed, the moral duty — to 


TEMPEST OVER AFRICA 


11 


help itself to the property of its weaker 
neighbor. 

Now this neighbor, forty-five years 
earlier, had not been quite so weak, had 
smashed an Italian army at the battle of 
Adowa. So, at least in the case of Italy, 
longing for revenge, too, was a motive. 

But revenge was not sufficient to justify 
invasion and conquest. What else could 
be done? 

Suppose a tribesman could be per- 
suaded, or provoked, to fire a pot-shot 
across the border into Eritrea or Italian 
Somaliland? Clearly an act of war. 
Italy would be the attacked country. 

And still — not quite enough. Some- 
thing even bigger had to be found before 
civilization at large was roused. 

For instance, if it could be proved that 
Abyssinia was utterly barbarous, that 
wholesale slavery existed? Slavery! 
Here was a juicy cud for preachers and 
professional reformers to chew, for news- 
papers to exaggerate, for docile public 
opinion to get incensed about. 

Well, sooner or later some such excuse 
would be given to the world. And in the 
meantime Europe’s vanguard, reinforced 
by the Levant’s oily, obsequious rear- 
guard of Greeks and Armenians and 
Syrians, got under way. 

Adventurers, mostly. Decent gentle- 
men, a few. 

And it was ironic as well as pathetic 
that the men who palmed off long-spoiled 
canned food and worthless cartridges on 
the Abyssinians made more money than 
those who sold sewing-machines and 
automobiles ; that the men who smuggled 
opium across the frontier made more 
than those who imported legitimate 
medicinal drugs ; that the men who 
traded in a shipload of Scotch whisky 
manufactured in Japan made more than 
the financiers who charged a fair seven 
per cent on a fair loan. 

B UT here they were, as they were. 

Waiting for the happy day when, 
after Ethiopia had lost its independence, 
there would be a rabble of new million- 
aires, a crop of freshly sprouted cap- 
tains of industry. Preparing for the 
event by meeting daily at one of the 
Greek cafes — the Cafe Makonnen was 
the most popular — and there boasting, 
arguing, lying, bartering, drinking, get- 
ting dismally drunk. 

And everybody on the make. Every- 
body endeavoring to squeeze something 
— in cash, or if cash was not to be had, 
in false promise or coordination of in- 


trigue — from everybody else. Then all 
joining hands to exploit the crowd that 
passed through Post Office Square: the 
Ethiopian natives — a clashing, pictur- 
esque, melodramatic African hodge-podge, 
men and women of a dozen tribes and 
tints, ranging from the pasty olive of an 
Amhara to the pale yellow of a Falasha 
Jew, from the chocolate-brown of a Shan- 
kalla or Gouragi to the amazing var- 
nished ebony of a splay-footed wanderer 
from the Great African Lakes. 

But workers all ; now, as evening drew 
near, wending their way home beneath 
the purple sky that was swelling like a 
bell. Wearily trudging along, eager to 
reach their humble homes after a hard 
day’s toil. 

"CUCKERS!” commented young Jim 
O M’Gregor, watching them. 

He had been here less than two weeks. 
Still, trained on New York’s Second 
Avenue and Tinpan Alley, he felt he 
knew a sucker when he saw one. 

“Fall guys!” he commented in his 
thoughts. “The fools who hold the bag ! ” 

He shook his head; and addressing 
Abyssinia as a whole, he repeated aloud : 
“Sucker ! ” 

A tough mariner from Liverpool’s Scot- 
land Road Division, who had deserted 
ship a month earlier and carelessly drifted 
overland, heard and misinterpreted. 

“Meanin’ me?” he demanded aggres- 
sively. 

The American laughed. 

“No, old boy,” he replied. “Why, — 
come to think of it, — meaning myself.” 

On, yes, he reflected as he walked on, 
he was a sucker — no doubt of it. To come 
here, to the back of the beyond, because 
of a dream. 

Two dreams, rather: The dream of a 
certain tune, he being a musician, a com- 
poser, whose haunting melodies — not that 
they had ever brought him in much cash 
— were hummed and whistled, and stolen 
by other composers up and down Tinpan 
Alley. And the dream of a certain girl. 

A girl, he thought romantically, — since 
after all his was the artist’s imagining 
that at times winged picaresque and bold 
above his slangy everyday mode of ex- 
pression, — who walked with such har- 
monious grace, as if she were moving to 
muted music on the violin, whose curly 
hair was black as a raven’s wing, whose 
red mouth was tender as well as ad- 
venturous, whose eyes were deep and 
violet-blue. Irish eyes — and indeed, her 
name being Kathleen O’Grady, why not ? 


12 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 



Eyes like some peaceful cloister into 
which a tired man might turn from the 
hubbub of an unquiet city street. . . . 

Perhaps she was thinking of him ; won- 
dering where he was. . . . “Oh, damn the 
damned luck!” Jim exclaimed as he 
squashed a large, bloodthirsty mosquito. 
And he thought of his boast — his silly, 
arrogant boast to himself, after his quar- 
rel with Kathleen — that he would show 
her, would show her father what stuff he 
was made of ! 

Wouldn’t she laugh if she could see 
him now! He remembered her laugh. 
Such a jolly laugh ; he had always loved 
it — had loved the whole girl. 

He would tell her all about his love, as 
he had told her before, the next time he 
saw her. Oh — the blessedness of telling 
her ! The dream of telling her. . . . 

He cut off his musings. 

Dreams, he decided, never came true. 
They were knocked flat by the first cold 
blast of reality — such as the fact that he 
was thousands of miles away from home, 
that his baggage was being kept, that he 
hadn’t a cent ; that he didn’t know a soul 
here, in Addis Ababa. 


A DDIS ABABA. It meant, some- 
. body had told him, the New Flower. 
Well, he brooded, as he walked along 
aimlessly through a crazy tangle of 
alleys where the black and the brown, 
the tan and dun and yellow swelled to- 
gether in amity and powerful scents, the 
name was certainly a misnomer. Fifty- 


seven smells — and all different, though 
all equally bad. 

Except — 

Why, he thought, as he passed an open- 
air restaurant where an old Galla hag 
presided over a mud-built kitchen range 
and iron pots, here was a most pleasant 
blending of fragrant odors : coffee freshly 
roasted and brayed ; a well-seasoned por- 
ridge of shimbura grain which, — so Abys- 
sinians rightly hold, — being good for 
horse and mule, must be good for man 
also; thin sheets of steaming-hot bar- 
guta bread ; a partridge cunningly stewed 
with rice and onions and mushrooms. 

He sniffed appreciatively — and morose- 
ly. How hungry he was ! Hadn’t eaten 
since last night, the Armenian not having 
permitted him to chalk up either break- 
fast or lunch. Gee, how hungry ! 

He looked at the pots. His mouth 
watered. The old hag made an inviting 
gesture. 

He shook his head, then smiled. . . . 

Put him in mind of something that had 
happened a little over seven years ago, 
when he had been sixteen — shortly after 
his widowed mother’s death. 

Even in those days, with melodies and 
twisted rhythms and syncopations always 
ringing in his brain, he had wanted to be 
a composer, a musician. Had wanted to 
be a composer, a musician, ever since he 
could remember, even as a little boy not 
much over six, when his playmates down 
along Second Avenue had nursed more 
heroic ambitions — deciding they were 
going to be policemen and firemen and 
street-car conductors. 

Not Jim! 

“I’m going to write music,” he had 
said to his mother — who had laughed. 

“I’m goin’ to write music,” he had 
said to their neighbor’s child Kathleen 
O’Grady — who had not laughed at all. 

She had looked up at him, had winked 
at him with that funny little quirk in her 
eyes. 

“Goin’ to write music for me?” she 
had asked — and Jim had gravely agreed. 

Oh, yes. Music. It had always been 
all around him : in the rumor of the sea 
when occasionally he went down to the 
Battery ; in the wind sighing and gossip- 
ing across the rooftops ; in the clash and 
clatter of the city streets. A thousand 
contending noises. And he always listen- 
ing to these noises, with breath caught 
and straining ears ; and his mother em- 
bittered by too much work, no longer 
laughing at his fancies, but telling him : 

“Aw — forget it ! ” 




TEMPEST OVER AFRICA 


13 


Well — his mother had died. He had 
been alone, had not changed his mind 
about what he wanted to be. A musician, 
a great musician! But music meant 
training, and training cost money; and 
he had been so poor. 

He had tried his best to get employ- 
ment, and finding nothing else to do, had 
sold newspapers. He had made just 
enough to keep body and soul together. 

T HEN a December evening: Christ- 
mas not far off ; glittering snow- 
crystals coming down in gusts from a 
leaden sky, and a bitter wind booming up 
from the East River, and men and women 
hurrying, collars upturned, hands rammed 
into pockets, and fingertips working fran- 
tically to keep off the nipping cold, while 
young Jim tramped the pavement for 
hours, insufficiently clad, insufficiently 
fed, his bundle of papers under his arm. 

He had not sold many. For it had 
really been too chilly to unbutton one’s 
coat and go groping for pennies, and per- 
haps get snow down one’s neck. Much 
easier to say — quite kindly, of course : 
“Run along, young feller ! ” 

Jim had run along. He had stared 
longingly into*fetore windows displaying 
rich holiday assortments of cakes and 
candy and fruit and nuts, and fat jolly 
little German sausages. His mouth had 
watered, as it was watering today. He 
had felt weak, had almost fainted; and 
finally he had come to Pat Dugan’s tough 
speak-easy, on Mulberry Bend. 

He had known old Pat, having gone to 
school with young Pat. He had entered. 
Dugan had been in a jovial mood. 

“Eats ? Sure. All yer belly can hold. 
And say — feel like earnin’ some dough?” 
“Show me ! ” 

“Attaboy ! Listen : my son tells me ye 
can warble like a lark and swing the light 
fantastic like one of them Ziegfeld 
chorines. Well,” — indicating the packed 
place, — “give us a tune and shake a leg. 
And I bet the ladies and gents’ll kick 
through handsome.” 

So Jim had danced, while somebody 
had thumped the wheezy piano. He had 
sung — chiefly one sentimental ballad, he 
remembered : “When Irish Eyes Are 
Smiling.” And there had been a rain of 
nickels and quarters. Even a five-dollar 
bill, the contribution of a nostalgic and 
slightly intoxicated policeman hailing 
from County Armagh. 

It had been Jim’s start in life. 

For he had continued at Dugan’s, as 
singing and dancing waiter, for a couple 


of years. He had saved enough money to 
go twice a week to the garret studio of 
Signor Giuseppe Cartona, on Bleecker 
Street, and learn there the rudiments of 
his craft : score and mediant, counter- 
point and modulation and diatonic scale. 

His name was beginning to be known 
— at least, on Tinpan Alley. And he re- 
flected that it was all due to Dugan’s 
speak-easy; his singing there, and danc- 
ing, because he had been so hungry on 
that December evening. 

No more hungry than he was right 
now. . . . 

Therefore the sudden notion — why not 
repeat the experiment ? 

He would have to sing in English, a 
language of which the Ethiopians were 
ignorant. But he doubted that it would 
matter much. For he recalled how, not 
so many years ago, back home in little 
old New York, they had been enthusias- 
tic about everything Russian, and had 
packed a Broadway theater where a 
Moscow company was plaving, without 
understanding a single word of what they 
heard. Well, he reckoned, the late P. T. 
Barnum was right : there was a fool born 
every minute; and he had an idea that 
Addis Ababa was no exception to the rule. 

Anyway, he’d make a stab at it. 

F IRST he would have to locate the 
proper stage-setting, and not forget the 
proper audience. So he kept on his way, 
searching for a likely spot — stopped as 
he decided he had found it. 

It was a fair-sized native caf£: open 
toward the street down its whole length ; 
lit by candles that were thickly festooned 
with mosquitoes and flying ants ; crowded 
with small tables round which a black- 
and brown riffraff sat yelling, laughing, 
arguing, noisily eating and drinking. 

He noticed a yellow cat nursing her 
five kittens on a mud shelf where a half- 
naked Arussi was carving a roast — 
noticed, on the floor in a corner, an old- 
style gramophone and a pile of dusty 
broken records. A sign that civilization 
had passed this way; and civilization 
meant snobbery — the snobbery, chiefly, 
of admiring whatever was alien, exotic, 
unintelligible. Therefore — sure ! — here 
was the place for him. 

He clapped his hands. Some of the 
people looked up, wonderingly. 

He said to himself : “Let’s go ! ” 

Close to the street he saw an unoccu- 
pied table. He jumped on it, balanced 
himself precariously. They stared at 
him. They raised eyebrows, exchanged 


14 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 



glances that were both supercilious and 
tolerant. They thought that this man 
was just a feringhee, a foreigner. Thus 
he was, doubtless, mad — and, most like- 
ly, intoxicated. 

They turned their backs on him, went 
on with their eating and drinking — then 
all at once changed their minds. For 
Jim had commenced singing. 

A lilting, wistful song it was. A song 
— words and music improvised on the 
spur of the moment — which later on, in 
America, was destined to bring him in a 
great deal of money and of Broadway- 
plus-Hollywood fame. “The Ethiopian 
Blues” was the name he would publish it 
under, the following spring. . . . And 
here, now, it rolled forth into the Ethi- 
opian night, the tropical night that 
painted the eucalyptus trees a silvery 
pastel shade, that clothed the spiky cac- 
tus clumps with a robe of lemon and 
violet and palest rose — that spread a 
filigree of liquid gold over the mazed 
alleys and the fetid dirt of the brown 
mud hovels : 

“7 got the blues, 

The dark blue bloo-hoos — 

The husky blues, the dusky blues, 

They haunt me, daunt me, fill me, thrill me 
With delight, 

By day and night! 

I’ve got the blues, the dusky blues. 

1 heard the jungle drums of fate. 

I drank an Ethiopiate — ” 

He was conscious of stage fright. His 
voice was a little tremulous, the words 
halting and quavery. 

But presently, as he observed the men 
in the cafe, as more came from neighbor- 
ing streets and crowded in, as he read, in 
staring eyes and sucked-in breath, the 
impression which he was making, he grew 
more and more sure of himself. The 
artist in him came to the fore. These 
people — why, they admired him, ap- 
preciated him. They knew a good thing 
when they heard it ! The realization was 
like incense in his nostrils, and his fine 
baritone voice bubbled from his lips with 
a warm intonation ; the words came ever 
more easily to his brain and tongue : 

“7 left my girl and traveled far 
To see a white-hot blinding star 
Fall, in a scorching symphony, 

From heaven’s cornucopia — ■ 


The melody sobbed in a rich bel canto. 
It rose higher and higher to a clear, bell- 
like note; rested there, dropped a full 
octave : 

“I’ve got the blues — 

The dusky, musky bloo-hoo-hoos— 

The Ethiopian blues. . . .” 

He gestured superbly. He gave them 
all he had, tossing it out jubilantly: 

“A land so strange my heart grows still — 
With gorge and rock and dust. . . . 

The mountain-tops bloom pale with snow, 
Above the dripping heat; 

The dark girls smile and softly go 
On bare and dancing feet — 

Naked feet. . . . 

Mimosa shakes its yellow hair — 

Faint fragrance is released. ... 

The blue Nile dreams of pomp long past, 

Of Sheba’s gorgeous Queen, 

Who sowed delight, dark as deep night, 
For Solomon to glean. 

And as the sluggish waters creep 
Through thick reeds waving mesh, 

The crocodiles stir in their sleep 
To dream of warm brown flesh. . . , 

Oh, jungle drums! Swift, cruel spears! 
Song! Laughter! Battle cry! 

Oh, harmony of hope and fear 
And Africa’s blue sky! 

I’ve got the blues — 

The dusky, husky bloo-hoos — 

The Ethiopian bloo-hoo-hoo-hoos.” 

Suddenly he stopped. There was a 
stark void of silence; and he smiled, 
pleased with himself. Gee, he thought, 
rather conceitedly, that had been good! 

Then applause burst forth, steadily 
droning in hectic beats, swelling to a 
solid phalanx of sound. 

Jim bowed. He was delighted with 
his success. He was, he reflected, as 
popular here as years ago he had been in 
Pat Dugan’s speak-easy; and as in Pat 
Dugan’s speak-easy, there was a rain of 
coppers, nickels, small pieces of silver. 

“Thank you ! ” he cried as he picked up 
the money. “Thank you ! ” 

He laughed. They laughed back. 

He went away, a glow in his soul, and 
money — decently earned, was his defiant 
thought — jingling in his pocket. He 
counted it. Just about enough to buy a 
square meal. He’d go to the Cafe Ma- 
konnen and see if they knew anything 
about a three-inch porterhouse steak, 
German fried potatoes and apple pie. 

He walked at a rapid pace, then 
halted as he heard a voice say in the 
soft drawl of Georgia’s cotton fields: 




TEMPEST OVER AFRICA 


IS 


“Boss, that Blues song was a su’-nuff 
honey.” 

He turned, looked. Who had spoken ? 

Just one man there, directly behind 
him : a tall African warrior, glossy-black 
a lion pelt draped over his left shoulder, 
his kinky hair carefully trained with the 
help of clay and grease into two foot- 
high spiral columns, sticking out on 
either side of his head and resembling 
antelope horns; broad copper bands en- 
circling his massive arms and ankles, a 
crude dagger at his hip, a brace of 
spears in his right hand. 

IM was puzzled. “Did I hear right?” 
he demanded. “Was it you who spoke 
to me?” 

“Sure was.” 

“Is your name by any chance George 
Washington Brown?” 

The negro broke into high-pitched, 
extravagant laughter. 

“Yo’ dog-gone near guessed it ! ” he ex- 
claimed. “Theodore Roosevelt Brown — 
that’s me. At least,” — with a little sigh, 
— “used to be me. Aint me no mo’.” 

And then, in answer to Jim’s “How 
come?” the other told a fantastic tale: 

The tale it was of a Georgia field-hand 
drafted into the army and crossing the 
Atlantic with the A.E.F. Remaining in 
France after the war, earning a precari- 
ous living as stevedore on the Marseilles 
docks; getting drunk one night and en- 
listing in the Foreign Legion. Sent to 
Morocco; hearing there about Ethiopia, 
the last of free Africa, threatened with 
war by the haughty egoism of a European 
dictator — and atavistic racial pride stir- 
ring in his brave heart, deserting the 
Legion and trekking overland, to offer 
his services to the Lion of the Tribe of 
Judah. Falling in, on his weary, amazing 
journey, with the Danakils, primitive, 
treacherous savages ; overawing them 
with his strength and superior wisdom ; 
and in the course of time, becoming one 
of their chiefs. . . . 

“Yes suh — Theodore Roosevelt Brown 
no mo’,” he repeated. “For them black 
boys gives me a brand-new monicker.” 
He spluttered forth a succession of 
dicky gutturals — all Jim caught was 
something like “Khifalu” — and not ill- 
pleased with himself, translated: ‘“The 
Bull Rhinoceros’ — yes suh, that’s how 
fierce a fighter Ah is. And yet,” he added 
rather morosely, “there’s moments when 
Ah feels like high-tailin’ it straight home 
to Dinwiddie Corners, Georgia.” 

Jim was amused. 



“Tell you what I’ll do, Theodore,” he 
said. “I’ll cut out the German fried and 
the apple pie.” 

“Suh?” 

“Never mind ; it’s a secret between my 
exchequer and me. I mean, seeing we're 
both Americans, I’ll buy you a drink.” 

“Thank yo’ kindly. But — may Ah 

take a rain-check?” 

“Got a date?” 

“Ah’s late now.” The man seemed 
nervous, embarrassed. 

“O. K., Theodore. Run along. Be 
seeing you one of these days.” 

“Can’t miss me, suh, with these here 
togs Ah’s wearin’.” 

The negro was off, while Jim turned 
in the direction of the Cafe Makonnen. 

Sudden and black, as it does in the 
tropics, full night had dropped. But the 
streets were still crowded. Through un- 
glazed windows drifted the scraping of 
stringed instruments, the wailing of reed- 
pipes, and ever and again, from the dis- 
tance, like a grim counterpoint, came the 
rubbing of wooden drums with their por- 
tentous staccato measure. In front of 
the houses the men squatted on their 
haunches, smoking and spitting and 
cackling, while the women swapped salty 
gossip or upbraided their husbands, and 
while children of all ages and all degrees 
of nudity played and yelled in the gutters. 

N O doors — at least, no doors that 
closed. Doors had no official func- 
tion here. For life was all in the open, 
untrammeled, brazen, savagely free. 

Life, thought Jim, like a pot filled to 
the brim with a strange, rich motley : 

A purple-black postern thick with coil- 
ing shadows, cut suddenly by the brutal 
flare of a torch and showing a twelve- 
year-old mother nursing iier baby. 

A dreamy-eyed youth twanging a one- 
stringed guitar. 

The gleam of a water-pipe daubing a 
gloomy hole with ochre and lemon. 

An old negress huddled on the thresh- 
old of her hut, her wrinkled neck twisted 
to one side as she blew into the fire of an 
open-air mud stove, where small skew- 
ered rags of mutton sizzled protestingly. 

A veiled Moslem woman, the tinkle of 
her massive sand-molded silver’ anklets 
accentuating — ding-dong ! ding-dong 1 
— the soft thud of her feet. 


16 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


Two Amharas of the ruling caste strut- 
ting along with the ruffianly urbanity of 
mincing gait and wanton eyes. 

A huge Sudanese half-breed, drunk 
with spiced brandy, boring rudely his 
way through the crowd, waving a naked 
sword, roaring a bazaar ballad with the 
full power of his lungs. 

He hiccoughed. He lifted his robe and 
tried a clumsy dance step — stumbled 
against a tiny pot-bellied cow that was 
wallowing and nosing in a puddle of 
warm blue slime, aimed a kick at it, 
missed, fell ; got up covered with mud. 

He cursed. Then he laughed. So did 
the throng. 

So did Jim. He loved it — loved it all : 
the confusion, the tumult, the riot. 

I T meant something to him. The day 
would come when he would put it all 
on paper, in terms of music, as the 
ground-work for the symphony which he 
meant to write. The “African Symphony” 
he would call it ; and it was going to be 
the real thing, rich, big, powerful ; for he 
was tired of being just a cheap tinkly 
Tinpan Alley jazz-scribbler. 

So he walked along, his hunger mo- 
mentarily forgotten ; gathering vocal im- 
pressions, drinking in the clashing sounds 
of Addis Ababa, letting them chime in 
his ears, beginning to shape and fashion 
them, to feel them in his inmost being, 
clear and high, tone on semi-tone, far up 
the scale. 

He knew how he would handle it. Long 
strains would come first — monotonous 
strains on the bass-viol, neither swelling 
nor lessening, but singing together in 
even honey-smooth chords: that would 
be the eternal patience of Africa. 

Then these strains would change, with 
the rush and surge of a wave, with an in- 
finite joy and triumphal sweep: and 
that would be the sensuality of Africa. 

Then the saxophones — keening, weep- 
ing, sobbing: and that would be the de- 
spair of Africa. 

Then he would weave in a dozen vio- 
lins, reinforce them with flutes and flage- 
olets, stabbing a sharp, vibrant, rather 
cruel rhythm : and that would be the 
savagery of Africa. 

Then the whining slapstick stammer 
of clarinet and oboe: and that would be 
the humor of Africa. 

Then, after a sudden pause, a solo on 
cymbals and trombones and shrill fifes, 
gallantly raising a mighty diapason — 
louder and louder, deafening, absolutely 
deafening ; and he would add here about 


a dozen drums, both large and small: 
and that would be the future of Africa, 
the hope for happiness and freedom. 

Then, after a sudden pause, a solo on 
the steel-guitar twisting into a labyrinth 
of baroque dissonances, an embroidery of 
fantastic arabesques; picking up the 
main melody, the leit-motif, with an 
abundance of eerie minor harmonies, 
dropping to a whispering, elusive pianis- 
simo: and that would be the soul of 
Africa. . . . 

The real thing it was going to be. As 
big and new and startling as anything 
George Gershwin had ever written. And 
he had it all figured out. All except — 
and he smiled with bitter self-irony — the 
leit-motif, the main melody, the vital 
essence and spirit of the whole symphony. 

Rather, he had only half the melody. 
He had heard it that night in New York, 
after his quarrel with Kathleen O’Grady, 
when he had had a few drinks too many, 
and had butted into that queer- Harlem 
joint. 

But he did not know the second half. 
Nor was it a question of composing, of 
coaxing and digging it out of his imagi- 
nation, his musical inventiveness. It had 
to be genuine, as the first half was genu- 
ine. That’s why he had gone to Addis 
Ababa, to complete the leit-motif. And 
also because of Kathleen. 

A double reason that blended into a 
single: a double dream that — once more 
his morose, pessimistic reflection — would 
never come true. 

H E had known her first when they 
both were children, in adjacent flats 
of the same Second Avenue tenement. 
Their fathers had been friends; Kath- 
leen’s mother was dead ; and often, when 
Dan O’Grady was working late on the 
docks, his own mother would have her in 
to supper. 

He remembered her as a little girl — 
passionate, hoydenish, sometimes wild; 
never — “Thank God ! ” her father used to 
say — a good child, yet with all her fail- 
ings so frankly, so gloriously manifest, 
and never one to stoop to mean strata- 
gem. Jim remembered how she had 
looked, with her small oval face in a toss 
of black curls and her violet-blue eyes so 
merry, and ever a laugh on her red lips, 
the gush of a happy heart. He remem- 
bered, too, how she wept that morning 
when she told him she was leaving New 
York, her father having decided to try 
his luck out West. 

He lugged her suitcase to the train. 


TEMPEST OVER AFRICA 


17 


“Say — goin’ to write to me, Kathleen?” 

“Sure. Every day.” 

“And I’ll write you twice every day.” 

She never wrote. He did — scores of 
letters, telling everything. But he wrote 
them in his mind, not on paper. He did 
not know where she was. 

So he forgot. She did too. They were 
children, taken up with their selfish 
young affairs. . . . The years passed ; his 
parents died. He was on his own, bat- 
tling life; and then, after a while, he did 
hear of her — or rather of her father, as 
all America began to hear of him. 

For Dan O’Grady had struck it rich in 
Montana and was coining millions. Not 
only in gold, but also in copper, oil, real 
estate. One of those fabulous, cyclonic 
American business careers. Luck? Of 
course. But topping mere luck, and per- 
haps in some ways causing it, were cour- 
age, shrewdness, willingness to take a 
risk as well as to take a loss. 


He had the eager, rather boyish trick 
of following a hunch and making up 
his mind recklessly, on the spur of the 
moment, though at times it might in- 
volve millions, and the loss of millions. 
Indeed, like so many great American 
financiers, he saw business less as a prob- 
lem in abstract cut-and-dried mathe- 
matics than as a poem (his denial would 
have been profane had you told him), a 
grand poem which he lived, did not write. 

That’s how, after his return to New 
York, he became involved in Abyssinia. 

He happened to be downtown, hap- 
pened to go into a Pearl Street saloon for 


“Shut up!” the 
young red-head- 
ed man roared. 
“Say it with flow- 
ers — not with 
a mouthful of 
garlic!” 



18 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


a drink, happened to get into conversa- 
tion with a mahogany-tanned Englishman. 

They talked politics, then business. 
O’Grady became interested. For the 
Englishman — John Smith was his plain 
name — talked business as the other liked 
to hear it talked: not in terms of Wall 
Street, where security must always be 
gilt-edged, and where two and two total a 
prosy everyday four. But business in 
terms of careless, slightly piratical ro- 
mance. Business in the far lands, where 
security is based less on engraved bond 
and stock certificates than on high imag- 
ining, and where two and two make five 
—or five hundred, or five thousand — or 
like as not, nothing at all. 

Fluently he spoke, of a land that was 
waiting to be awakened, developed and 
made to pay— .in millions. 

“Millions, O’Grady 1” he insisted, 
banging the bar counter with his fist. 
“I just came back from Africa. I know.” 

It was after the ninth drink that the 
American-Abyssinian Development Com- 
pany was formed, and after the eleventh 
that O’Grady went home. 

Home meant Fifty-third Street East. 
A triplex penthouse on the twenty- 
seventh floor, in simplified Louis Seize, 
complete from cornices to dadoes, from 
half-moon consoles to needlepoint chairs 
and Savonnerie carpets. 

“Not that I give a whoop in hell for 
all this French muck,” Dan O’Grady ex- 
plained. “But my girl likes it, and what 
she says, goes — see?” 

If the New York press grew epic, in 
its financial columns, about Dan, it grew 
lyric in its society columns about Kath- 
leen. Not only because of her father’s 
wealth and because she was lovely to 
look at, but because she was so typical- 
ly, modernly American : strong, athletic, 
fearless; playing an excellent game of 
tennis ; driving a racing car ; piloting her 
own airplane, weaving the pattern of its 
great wings across an unamazed sky ; yet 
entirely feminine. 

J IM met her by accident, at a matinee 
of a musical revue to which he had 
contributed a few numbers. He spoke 
to her in the intermission : 

“Aren’t you Kathleen O’Grady?” 

She turned, looked at him. 

“I bet,” he added, “you don’t remem- 
ber me.” 

“Bet taken and lost. You’re Jim 
M’Gregor.” Then, woman-like, she went 
to the attack : “You promised you’d write 
to me. And you never did.” 


“But how could I?” He was indig- 
nant. “You didn’t send me your ad- 
dress.” 

“Perhaps,” — demurely, — “it might be 
my letter was lost in the mail.” 

“Oh, yeah?” 

“Jim, you’re every bit as rude as you 
were down on Second Avenue.” 

“And you’re every bit as fresh as you 
were down on Second Avenue. And as 
pretty.” 

“Like me as much as you did?” 
“Shouldn’t wonder.” Then he paused. 
“What do you think of the show?” 

“Not so hot. Except that last song, 
just before the curtain. That was a wow.” 

“I wrote it,” he informed her, trying 
to appear modest. 

“Did you really?” 

“Yes. You see — I’m a composer.” 
“Wanted to be one ever since you were 
a small boy. I remember you promised 
you were going to write music for me.” 

“Got to make up for lost time. I’ll 
write you a tune tonight.” 

“Come to the house and play it for 
me?” 

“You bet. How about tomorrow?” 
“At five, Jim.” 

H E went, and remained to dinner. 

Dan O’Grady was nice to him, asked 
him many questions. Jim became expan- 
sive when he spoke of his struggles. He 
was happy — would have been happier, 
had it not been for Sloane Van Vleet, 
who called later in the evening. 

Of course, Jim knew who Van Vleet 
was. Who didn’t know — in New York, 
Bar Harbor, Newport? Knickerbocker 
with a capital K. Millionaire with a 
capital M. Very Park Avenue, decided 
Jim — and exceedingly polo. Yet, though 
Jim hated to admit it, attractive. 

Van Vleet was tall, dark, tersely mas- 
culine. His reputation was somewhat 
thumb-marked by having been hawked 
through several continents. When men 
spoke of him, they dropped a knowing, 
tolerant and slightly envious eyelid over 
his various sins. Women liked him, 
more than liked him, giving as their rea- 
son that he was “that delightful Van.” 

Oh, yes — attractive to both sexes. Nor 
was Kathleen an exception to the rule. 

Jim minded it dreadfully. For he had 
fallen head over heels in love with her. 

A girl in a million! But a girl, he 
punned unhappily, with far too many 
millions. 

Dan O’Grady’s only child. The top, 
in other words, while he himself was 


TEMPEST OVER AFRICA 


19 


mighty near the bottom. A cheap Broad- 
way tunesmith who considered himself 
lucky when he earned three thousand a 
year. And when he did something good 
— as last winter, his “Pigs in Clover” 
song — some crook plagiarized it, stole it 
from him. 

Of course there was the African sym- 
phony which he was going to write. But 
that needed long, unhurried preparation ; 
needed money in the bank before he 
could really start. 

S O, he told himself, he had no right 
to talk to her of love. But one eve- 
ning they were together on the penthouse 
terrace. At first they spoke casually: 

“Indian summer. But still hot, isn’t 
it?” 

“Frightfully hot.” 

A pause. 

“Lot of war talk in the papers.” 

“Is there?” 

“Yes. Italy and Ethiopia.” 

“Never heard of the place.” 

“It interests Father,” said Kathleen. 
“He invested a lot of money there.” 

“Well,” — rather ungraciously, — “then 
it would interest him.” 

“Should interest you too, Jim.” 
“Why?” 

“It’s in Africa, and you’re writing this 
African symphony. How is it coming 
on?” 

“Lousy ! You know,” — he shrugged his 
shoulders, — “I’ve my daily bread to earn. 
All I’ve had time to write is the title 
page — and the dedication.” 

“Whom are you dedicating it to?” 

“To you.” 

She glanced at him. Her eyes, he 
thought, — but then, he was young and an 
artist and in love, — danced along her 
eyelashes straight into his heart. 

“Why to me?” she asked. 

“Do you mind?” 

“No, no. I am glad. But — well, you 
know oodles of other people.” 

“Sure. But there’s none who — ” He 
slurred, stopped. 

“None who — what?” she demanded. 
“All right, since you insist: There’s 
none who has your eyes. They aren’t 
eyes at all. They are wonderful and 
amazing events. They are Edison’s dis- 
covery of incandescent bulbs. They are 
Rockefeller after he piled up his ’steenth 
million. They are Paul Whiteman’s or- 
chestra in full blast.” 

“What makes you say such sweet silly 
things?” 

“It’s a gift.” 


“That isn’t the true reason.” She 
sat on the arm of his chair. “Tell me!” 

She smiled as he exclaimed roughly: 

“Because — damn it all — you’re the 
dearest kid between here and Podunk! 
Because I’m nuts about you!” 

“Is that all? Why, that’s no news to 
me.” She bent down until her face 
touched his. “This, Mr. James M’Gregor, 
is the moment to kiss me.” 

He pushed her away, got up. 

“No,” he said. 

“No?” she echoed, hurt as well as 
astonished. 

“Not until I’ve talked to your father.” 

She gave a queer little laugh, while Jim 
left. He found her father in his apart- 
ment on the third floor of the penthouse 
that knew nothing of Louis Seize, but 
was furnished gaudily in yellow oak. 

O’Grady looked up. “You seem all 
hot and bothered. What’s eatin’ you, 
Jim?” 

The younger man swallowed hard. 

“Oh — I,” he blurted out finally, “I 
want to marry your daughter.” 

“Don’t blame you. But the answer is 
no.” 

Jim bit his nether lip. Why, he told 
himself, he should have expected this. 

“I understand ! ” he exclaimed. “Don’t 
want me for son-in-law because I’m — ” 

“Poor and a musician? Lay off that 
stuff, boy ! I’ve been poor myself ; and 
back in Montana I knew a fiddler who 
was one hell of an elegant boy.” 

“Then — what’s wrong with me?” 

"YY/ANT me to tell you?” O’Grady 

W asked. 

“Sure.” 

“All right. I’ve been a miner, you 
know. I’ve mined gold. I know gold. 
That’s what you are, Jim. All gold. 
Pure gold. And — it’s no good.” 

“Eh?” 

“It’s too soft. Can’t do a thing with 
it. Got to mix it with some baser metal. 
That’s what you need — the baser metal, 
the alloy — see?” 

“What do you mean by that?” 

“The willingness to fight.” 

“Oh!” Jim flushed. “You think that 
I’m—” 

“A coward? No, no. I guess I ex- 
pressed myself wrong. Sure you’ll fight 
— when you’ve got to. But trouble is 
that you don’t fight to win. You’re al- 
ways afraid of hurtin’ — not yourself, but 
the other fellow. Jim, there are moments 
when you’ve got to hit below the belt. I 
had to — many a time.” 


20 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 



“And I don’t like you any better for 
it.” 

“There you go — provin’ my point. Now, 
I know Kathleen. She’s fond of you. 
She’ll marry you, in spite of what I’ve to 
say, if she makes up her mind. But she 
won’t be happy with you. Not for long.” 

“Why not?” 

“Because of what I’ve been tryin’ to 
tell you — because she agrees with me. 
Because — well, what she admires most in 


a man is the ability to take it— and to 
dish it out. Call it plain guts. Wait ! ” — 
as Jim was about to interrupt. “Let me 
say my piece: I’ve heard you complain 
how people down on Tinpan Alley swipe 
your tunes. And what d’you do about it ? 
Not one damned thing.” 

“What would you do?” 

“I’d swipe theirs!” 

“Oh!” 

“Shocked? There you go again!” 
O’Grady ashed his cigar. “I’ve listened 
to you bellyachin’ all over the place how 
you never get the breaks. And what 
d’you do about it ? Once more : not — one 
—damned — thing! You’ve got to make 
your own breaks — see ? Oh, yes — you’re 
a decent lad; and for all I know — not 
that I’m a judge — a musical genius. But 
you get nowhere.” 

“I’m doing the best I can.” 

“Not good enough for my Kathleen. 
Got to do better. Got to get somewhere. 
Be a man ! Not a whinin’ puppy whom 
everybody shoves around.” He turned as 
the door opened and Kathleen came in. 
“Been eavesdroppin’ ?” 

“Yes, Dad.” 

“Ought to be ashamed of yourself.” 

“I’m not. It’s the only way to find 
out things.” 

“That’s true.” 

She said to Jim: 

“Let’s go back to the terrace.” 

They went there. She faced him — 
and announced : 

“Father is right.” 

He did not believe his ears. 

“You — you mean that!” 

“I realize it now. You and I couldn’t 
be happy — for long. I wish never to see 
you again.” 

He stared at her. 

“I get you,” he said slowly, bitterly. 
“Leading me on — that’s what you’ve been 
doing. Playing with me! Trying to 
find out what makes me tick!” 

“It isn’t true!” 

He strode to the door, slammed it be- 
hind him. 

“Jim ! ” she cried. “Jim l” 

He did not hear. 

H E tried not to think of what .O’Grady 
had told him, what Kathleen had 
said. Tried not to think, because deep 
in his soul he knew that they were right ; 
because he wanted to escape from the 
grim, merciless shadow of self-knowledge 
which jeered at him: 

“You’re a failure! Just a failure! 
You’ll never get anywhere!” 


TEMPEST OVER AFRICA 


.21 


He walked on. There was an ache in 
his heart, a loneliness and an emptiness. 
He pitied himself, then laughed at him- 
self as he strode along the street. 

Near the corner Policeman O’Neale 
was walking his beat. 

“Officer,” asked Jim, stepping up to 
him, “what would you do if your best 
girl gave you the gate?” 

“I’d get me another jane,” was the 
prompt reply. 

“But suppose that in spite of every- 
thing you still know she’s the one and 
only one?” 

“If I had it that bad, I’d likely get 
soused.” 

J IM did just that. A couple of hours 
later, he found himself in Harlem, 
not exactly sober — nor exactly drunk. 
Only in two ways the whisky had affect- 
ed him. For there was his defiant re- 
solve: “I’ll show Kathleen what stuff 
I’m made of! I’ll show old O’Grady! 
I’ll show all Tinpan Alley ! ” And while 
his musician’s brain was always automat- 
ically registering sounds, it was tonight 
even more keenly receptive. 

Eagerly he listened to the noises of 
Harlem: strident, lurching yells; high- 
pitched laughter ; hiccoughy stumble and 
bray of jazzed Verdi and over-jazzed 
Jerome Kern. But with a beat and ring 
that was purely African ; untamed, exu- 
berant, shameless, yet moaning, wistful. 

His imagination began playing with 
notes and cadences. But suddenly he 
shook his head. 

No more syncopated tripe. He was 
through with prostituting his talent. 
.... Honest, fine things he would write 
in the future. And first, his African sym- 
phony. He’d do it; and he didn’t care 
if he had to starve, had to live in a Bow- 
ery flop-house. 

If he could only get the right sort of 
start — find the main melody, the basic, 
chromatic thread! Must be genuine, 
not hoke. Cairo and Congo, not Broad- 
way and Hollywood. Primeval it would 
have to be. Gorgeously barbaric, though 
with a tragic appeal: the plaint of a 
whole race in darkness. Something — oh, 
hard to express, with his intelligence, 
what he meant. But deep in his soul, he 
felt it. . . . And then, all at once, he 
heard it. Yes, just the melody he needed ! 
He listened, quivering with excitement. 
.Where did it come from? 

Presently he located the direction of 
the sounds: a house on the far side of 
the street. He crossed the road. The 


tune seemed to draw him on, to suffuse 
his whole being. Then it stopped, in 
the middle of the melody. 

He reached the house. Lighted win- 
dows on the first floor, a smell of to- 
bacco and food. Must be a restaurant, 
though there was no signboard proclaim- 
ing it as such. He went up the front 
steps, went slowly. For he was conscious 
of a queer sensation, something like a 
chilly premonition which told him : 

“You are stepping away from life as 
you have lived it heretofore. Away from 
the life of tame conveniences, with ever 
a policeman around the corner to watch 
over you. Away into a new life of mot- 
ley adventure and brooding mystery — 
of mazed, incredible happenings where 
only your own wits and courage can pro- 
tect you.” 

He was now cold sober — and afraid. 
The realization that he was afraid made 
him wary ; kept him, when he had crossed 
a badly lighted vestibule and come to a 
door, from flinging it wide. Instead, he 
turned the knob carefully, opened the 
door at a slant, peered in. 

He saw a number of men, perhaps a 
dozen, sitting down, eating, drinking, 
smoking, conversing in undertones. They 
were dark of skin, but not negroes. Their 
hair was straight, their cheek-bones high, 
their lips finely drawn. He was unable 
to place them racially. Nor, when his 
ear had become attuned to the dim voices 
so that he could pick out single sounds, 
was he able to tell what language they 
were speaking. Not a European lan- 
gauge, he was certain, nor an Oriental, 
but a kind of dicky, hissing utterance. 

Again, unreasonably, he was conscious 
of fear, of something — how was he going 
to express it to himself? — something 
like an undercurrent alive with a seethe 
of evil, invisible forces, alien forces 
which he hated instinctively, which vi- 
brated a dread and ominous challenge. 

He cut off his thoughts, told himself it 
was only his imagination. He was here 
for a harmless purpose : to get the end of 
that tune ; and — the people in the room 
still unaware of this presence — he was 
about to enter, when a hand dropped on 
his shoulder and a voice said: 

“Who may you be?” 

W ITH a start, he turned. Two men 
stood in the half-light. An electric 
torch flashed, bringing his features into 
relief. At once, before he had a chance 
to defend himself, they were upon him, 
dragging him rapidly down the vestibule. 


22 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


Hold-up men ? The idea amused him. 
He had all of ten dollars with him. 

To the right of the vestibule was 
another door. They pushed it open, 
forced him across the threshold, slammed 
it shut. The light was switched on. He 
found himself in a small room ; saw the 
two men distinctly. 

O NE — he seemed vaguely familiar to 
Jim — was a white man, tall and 
bony, with deep-set, strained eyes and a 
wrinkled clean-shaven face strongly re- 
sembling that of a weary bloodhound. 
The other was a negro, squat, powerful. 
The white man said slowly : 

“Caught you.” 

“Sure. Be a sport and leave me car- 
fare,” Jim laughed. But the next mo- 
ment his laugh changed to an exclamation 
of sheer terror as, at the other’s com- 
mand in the same dicky dialect, the ne- 
gro flicked out a revolver. 

“Cut out the rough stuff!” cried Jim. 
“I’ll come across with the dough.” 

“Playing comedy?” The man spoke 
with a soft Slav purr. “Won’t do you 
any good.” 

“But what have I done?” 

“You” — coldly — “came here.” 

“Why the hell shouldn’t I ? It’s a res- 
taurant, isn’t it?” 

“It is not ! ” — as coldly as before. 
“Sorry I butted in. But the street 
door was open.” 

“Even so, you had no right to — ” 

“Let me explain!” 

“Be quick about it!” 

Jim was — very quick : About his being 
a composer; the symphony he had in 
mind; the melody that had drifted from 
the house — half the melody. He wanted 
to get the rest. 

“Can you prove who you are?” inter- 
rupted the other. 

“Sure.” Jim displayed letters. 

“Such things can be forged. Anybody 
to vouch for you?” 

“Lots of people.” 

He mentioned acquaintances up and 
down Broadway — musicians, writers, ac- 
tors, stage-hands. The stranger shook 
his head — remarked contemptuously: 

“They would swear to anything for 
the price of a drink. Know somebody 
who — well, matters?” 

Jim hesitated ; should he give O’Grady 
as reference? He decided against it. 
The latter was bound to tell Kathleen; 
and it would convince her more than 
ever that she was right — that he was 
a nincompoop, a failure. 


What about Van Vleet? 

“Sloane Van Vleet,” he said. 

“Very well. I’ll telephone to him.” 

The stranger left. Jim sat down, the 
negro watching him with unblinking, 
bloodshot eyes. He speculated what it 
was all about. A gambling club? A 
gangsters’ hang-out ? Must be something 
of the sort ; yet why had the man seemed 
so familiar? He searched his memory. 
Then, suddenly, he knew. 

The dailies, sometime back, had been 
full of him: Prince Igor Garatinsky, a 
former officer in one of the murdered 
Czar’s guard regiments. He had come to 
America and had been well received, un- 
til a foreign correspondent, returned 
from Moscow, had exposed him. Not 
that the man wasn’t who he claimed to 
be. But after the revolution he had 
joined the Bolshevists; had become a 
member of the Ogpu, the Secret Police; 
and — there was grim humor in the sit- 
uation — had been expelled from Russia, 
because his Red masters had considered 
his methods too harsh and cruel. After 
the exposure, certain New York news- 
papers had urged that he be driven out 
of the country ; the authorities had taken 
up the case; and even now deportation 
proceedings were in progress. 

G aratinsky came back. 

“I talked with Van Vleet,” he said. 
“He vouches for you. In fact,” — with a 
thin smile, — “he’s ready to pay your 
fine.” 

“What fine?” 

“I led him to believe the police were 
calling him up. Well — sorry about this 
contretemps. Neither your fault nor 
mine. Fault of the fool who left the 
front door unlocked.” 

“Is it a gambling club?” 

“The stakes we play for are rather 
high.” The Russian was amused. “So 
you’d oblige me by not mentioning this 
little adventure.” 

“No fear. Nobody would believe me. 
But — favor for favor: I told you about 
that melody. I’d like to hear the rest.” 
“Out of the question.” 

“Listen! My symphony — if I could 
explain” — he was so in earnest — “what it 
means to me — ” 

“No ! ” — sharply. “Impossible ! ” 

“Well — at least, do you know a place, 
somewhere, anywhere, where I can hear 
that tune?” 

“Yes. There is such a place.” The 
Russian laughed disagreeably. “In Addis 
Ababa.” 


TEMPEST OVER AFRICA 23 


“Never heard of it.” 

“It’s the capital of Ethiopia. I don’t 
suppose,” — ironically, — “you’ve heard of 
that either ?” 

“I have, too.” 

J IM grinned. He had heard about it to- 
night, from Kathleen. She had said 
there was talk of war between Ethio- 
pia and Italy. 

He looked up, as Garatinsky continued : 
“If, being an American and therefore 
inquisitive, you should go to Addis 
Ababa — if by chance you should find this 
place — you’ll be sorry. That is, if dead 
men can be sorry.” 

Jim went down the steps. He was ex- 
cited — less about the strange happenings 
of the last half hour, than about the 
melody. If only he could find the other 
half! 

In Addis Ababa? 

Not that he took any stock in all that 
scary bogy stuff the Russian had spilled. 
Still, it was far away — at the back of the 
beyond. Would cost him a young for- 
tune to get there ; and all he had was ten 
dollars. . . . Ten dollars. No good for 
anything. Might as well blow himself 
to a taxi. 

He hailed one. The car sped south, 
through deserted streets, narrow streets, 
poor, unwashed. Then, suddenly, arro- 
gantly, Park Avenue, flinging its spires 
and towers and massive, bragging blocks 
aloft. Gloating in the black night with 
its black pride, pierced here and there 
by a yellow clock-face, a light behind a 
twenty-seventh-story window. 

Van Vleet lived here. Oh, thought 
Jim, he would! 

The next moment he called himself 
churlish, ungrateful. The man had be- 
haved like a brick. He’d tell him so — 
right now. 

He stopped at a drug-store, telephoned 
Van Vleet, thanked him. 

“Don’t mention it,” was the laughing 
answer. “How sober are you?” 

“Sober as a judge.” 

“Tammany judge, I suppose. Where 
are you?” 

“Two blocks away.” 

“Come on up— we’ll open a bottle.” 
He found Van Vleet in pajamas, en- 
gaged in a game of solitaire. Again he 
thanked him. 

“Forget it, Mac,” said the other. 
‘What’ll you have ? Scotch — or Scotch ?” 
“Scotch.” 

Van Vleet left ; came back with bottle, 
glasses, ice. 


“What have you been playing?” asked 
Jim. 

“Poker solitaire. If I catch a royal 
flush, I win a million bucks from myself. 
Ever try it ?” 

“The poker part — without the solitaire. 
Fact is, I invented the game.” 

“Having a good conceit of yourself?” 

“For reasons.” 

Jim smiled reminiscently. Poker was 
another thing he had learned at Pat Du- 
gan’s speak-easy. 

“Take you on for a few rounds, Mac.” 

M’Gregor hesitated. His pile, after he 
had paid the taxi, was less than eight 
dollars. He said: 

“Seven-ninety is all I can afford to 
lose.” 

“You’ll have lost it in about two jiffs.” 

But Van Vleet was mistaken. For Jim 
was an inspired player. His face, when 
he picked up his hand or asked for cards, 
showed less emotion than that of the 
late Calvin Coolidge; his elocution, when 
he said, “I guess I’ll play these,” was a 
pure product of art; his strategy was 
never twice alike; and when, once in a 
while, Van Vleet abandoned a pot to 
him without calling, and afterward, with 
the spirit and voice of an early Christian 
martyr, inquired what Jim had had, the 
latter would lie like an Armenian stock- 
broker with a Greek mother. 

Three o’clock came — and Van Vleet 
yawned. 

“I’m dog-tired. Mind stopping?” 

“I’m ahead — ” 

“What of it? You can give me revenge 
some other time.” 

Jim pocketed his winnings. Eleven 
hundred and fifty- three dollars! A pot 
of money. Enough, it occurred to him 
on the way home, enough to take him to 
Africa ; to stick around there for a while, 
see if he couldn’t trace the rest of that 
melody ! 

Then and there, he made up his mind. 

F OUR days later he left New York. 

He said farewell to nobody, not even 
Kathleen. He felt a little ashamed when 
he thought of her. He had been rough 
with her, unfair. Still, her fault quite as 
much as his. . . . 

Just wait till he came back ! He’d get 
what he was after. He’d write that sym- 
phony, would become famous. Then she 
would whistle a different tune. 

But he had miscalculated — at least, 
financially. 

For, arrived at Marseilles, he quickly 
discovered that — with international in- 


24 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 





trigues reaching the point of explosion, 
with hostilities between Ethiopia and 
Italy expected as soon as the rains were 
over, with all sorts of adventurers hurry- 
ing south like hyenas to the lion’s kill — 
steamship fares to Djibouti had doubled. 
In Djibouti itself prices had soared sky- 
high. The railway journey thence to 
Addis Ababa had taken all but his last 
seventy dollars, while a few days at a 
decent hotel had accounted, frighteningly, 
for all but nine. He had moved to the 
dirty third-rate Grand Hotel de Paris; 
had put his pride in his pocket and ca- 
bled to a Broadway music publisher, beg- 
ging him to wire an advance on the next 


song he was going to write. No answer 
had come. And here he was now, thrown 
out on the street, his baggage held, and 
only enough money in his wallet to pay 
for one meal. 

Well — happen what may, he’d get that 
meal and do it full justice. He hurried 


TEMPEST OVER AFRICA 


25 


on toward the Cafe Makonnen; and all 
at once he realized that, his mind oc- 
cupied with memories of the past, he had 
lost his way. Though he stopped peo- 
ple, addressing them in English and his 
few words of French, nobody under- 
stood him ; “Cafe Makonnen” was all they 
caught. They explained volubly and un- 
intelligibly ; they pointed, gesticulated. 
He tried to follow the directions. He 
turned right, left — got twisted, doubled 
on his tracks. It grew darker and dark- 
er, until finally he found himself in a 
network of byways with no lights at all. 


peaking — as if the blackness, the night, 
Africa herself, were screaming in agony 
and despair. The wail stopped, was suc- 
ceeded by a swathing, excessive silence 
more appalling than the cry had been. 

Jim crossed himself. He walked fast- 
er — and presently he knew, by the ab- 
sence of slurring voices and pattering 
feet and swishing garments, that he had 
left the town behind him, that he was 
out, somewhere, in the surrounding wil- 
derness. No sound there was except the 
wind which howled like a leashed, starv- 
ing dog, and the melancholy yaup-yaup 



So black it was that he could see neith- 
er house nor man nor beast. Yet life was 
everywhere about him. He was mad- 
deningly conscious of eyes staring at him 
through the inky darkness, used to that 
same darkness. Whispering voices he 
heard; bare feet slithering away on in- 
credible and mysterious errands ; the 
rustle of garments brushing past, touch- 
ing him ; a woman’s brittle, tinkly laugh- 
ter; a clash of jewelry and crackle of 
steel; and once a cry — a cry of infinite 
desolation, trembling, stretching, shrilly 


of an egret dropping through the air 
like a spent bullet. And it seemed to 
Jim as if he had been exiled from the 
kindly earth as he knew it, with its vir- 
tues and vices, its loves and hates, its 
gayeties and sorrows, and was now com- 
ing to another planet high up in the 
sable starless heavens, with the former 
earth he had known spinning below and 
far away through the eternal fields of 
space and time. And he felt surging 
over him a wave of stark, abstract ter- 
ror; terror — thus his curious imagining 




26 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


— of the soul, not of the body, uncon- 
nected with the realization of any actual 
physical danger. And he gave a sigh of 
relief as, a few moments later, lights 
flickered and stuttered on the horizon. 

He hurried. He tripped, stumbled 
over the rough ground, bumped against a 
hedge of euphorbia trees in his eagerness 
to get there. 

He saw, as he came nearer, the out- 
lines of a house, not the usual humble 
mud hovel, but a building that loomed 
vast and pretentious. The lights came 
from a window high up on a wall. They 
danced, broken at a sharp angle by the 
jutting-out of a shutter left slightly ajar, 
with elfin-green and frosted, silvery blue 
and strong red ; like sun-rays, he thought, 
streaming through the leaded, stained 
glass of a cathedral. 

Perhaps it was a native church — mi- 
tered and turbaned priests, white-and- 
gold-cloaked and barefooted, celebrating 
their ancient enigmatic Coptic ritual, 
praying to their own particular Christ 
who was so amazingly Oriental. At all 
events, people were in there. He’d ask 
them to put him on the right road. He’d 
make them understand. . . . 

He noticed a door. He was about to 
knock. Did not. 

F OR just as he was raising his hand, 
he heard music. He heard again the 
melody — yes! Yes / There was no 

doubt about it ! How could he be mis- 
taken? The melody that had brought 
him to Africa. 

Men singing: 

Ringindje! Dzidziroumbi! 

La pouela a ouami — 

Ho! Ringindje — 

The chanting stopped. Its place was 
taken by instruments : the clash of cym- 
bals, the rubbing of tomtoms, the hollow 
drone of a wooden drum, the plain- 
tive nasal notes of reed-pipes. Louder 
and louder — an unbridled display of 
Africa’s passions, suddenly dropping to a 
sobbing pianissimo, a wail of haunting 
cadences, more fleeting than the shadow 
of a leaf through summer dusk. 

Once more the singing: “Ringindji! 
DzedziroumbS — ” 

It gathered Strength and volume. It 
flamed with a great, sensuous magic. It 
swished — the simile came to Jim, as he 
stood there leaning forward a little so 
as not to miss a single note or modula- 
tion — like a naked sword across the 
Ethiopian wilderness. Nor did it break 


off in the middle as it had that night in 
Harlem. But it went on and on, com- 
plete, fulfilled — the entire melody, this, 
straight to the end. 

H E was excited, elated; here was the 
theme, the core, the soul of his sym- 
phony — indeed, the soul of all this far 
exotic land: the crimson heat-drenched 
days, the purple nights, the matted mi- 
asmic jungles, the mountains towering 
their jagged summits toward the sky, the 
desert sands that spawned their golden 
brittle eternities into the south and west 
— the seven winds of God athwart the 
immense, untrodden waste. . . . 

The chanting continued, awesome and 
compelling and irresistible, stirring the 
mysterious regions beneath the surface 
of his soul : 

Ho! Ringindje! 

La pouela a — 

Clicky, meaningless words. 

Meaningless ? 

No, no! They seemed to express — 
something: something vital and terribly 
important, something like a vast cosmic 
force. Almost as much as the music ! 

If he could get hold of these words, 
write them down! He’d weave them 
into the symphony, maybe use them as 
a solo during the finale. But he’d have 
to get them precisely right, or some 
know-it-all critic would accuse him of 
having faked the stuff. . . . 

He’d ask the people in there, whoever 
they were — explain to them, try to — 
Again he raised a hand to knock at 
the door. Again he desisted. For just 
then Prince Garatinsky’s warning came 
back to him: 

“If you should find this place — you’ll 
be sorry. That is, if dead men can be 
sorry ! ” 

The Russian had meant it. No doubt. 
Well — he had fooled him. He had 
found the place, had stored away the 
glorious melody in his brain, and was 
still very much alive. He told himself : 

“I’ll fool Garatinsky some more. I’ll 
hear it again — go after the words as 
well.” 

Cautiously he looked about. Only that 
one window. It was too high ; while the 
door, as he pressed a tentative ear against 
it, was too thick to hear distinctly. 

The roof might give him his chance. 
He noticed, as his eyes became used to 
the darkness above the dancing lights, 
that it had a balustrade surrounding it. 
Noticed, furthermore, three feet from 


TEMPEST OVER AFRICA 


27 


the ground, a narrow ledge with iron 
rings, evidently a sort of hitching-post 
for horses and mules. 

He jumped on it, stretched his long 
arms, caught the top of the balustrade 
and swung himself, with only a soft 
thud, onto the roof. It was flat, made of 
palm-wood slabs. 

There was, to the left, a faint yellow 
gleam. On his hands and knees, shield- 
ed by the balustrade from anyone who 
might pass outside, he crept up to it. 
The gleam — oh, blessed African careless- 
ness! — came from a crack in the wood 
a foot long and nearly an inch wide. 

The scene below, as he leaned over and 
peered, leaped at him with a confused 
massing of colors and sounds. From 
swinging lamps, veiled by incense smoke, 
streamed lights, wavering and glimmer- 
ing, blazing with the golden brown of 
topaz, trembling into jasper and opal. 
Round and round whirled the scented 
smoke, painting the air with fantastic 
shadows, pouring from floor to ceiling 
and back again, while from the mass of 
humanity that squatted about rose the 
chanting of, “Ringindje ! Dzidziroum- 
b&t” blending with the instruments of 
the musicians seated in a corner. 

Some of the men were like those he 
had seen that night in Harlem, and had 
been unable to place racially; he knew 
them now: Amharas of the ruling Abys- 
sinian caste. The majority were negroes 
— savages. But superb savages. Giants, 
many of them, their naked bodies stained 
with scarlet and ochre stripes, head- 
dresses of ostrich plumes fastened into 
leather frames that encircled their faces, 
capes of hawks’ feathers floating from 
their shoulders, round their legs anklets 
made of long monkey-hair. 

They were all in a queer state of ex- 
citement, all swaying from side to side 
as they chanted. Swaying, swaying, 
swaying — like chained jungle beasts. 

T WO men sat a little apart on an 
earthern platform. 

One was an Arab, rather dandified, 
with his silken snow-white burnouse, the 
crimson rose over his left ear, his long, 
delicate fingers that occasionally took a 
perfume vial from his waist-shawl and 
held it daintily against his nose. The 
other was — Prince Igor Garatinsky. 

Jim was not really surprised at seeing 
him here. Naturally there must be a 
connecting link between this place and 
the one in Harlem. What did surprise 
him was that, as the music swelled more 


loudly and ominously, the Russian, too, 
began swaying and chanting. 

Why, Jim said to himself, it was so 
damned unlikely, so utterly absurd, the 
idea of this white man, this Russian aris- 
tocrat, sitting there chanting and sway- 
ing— like these savages! 

Ludicrous ! Yes. 

Still — was it ludicrous? 

S UDDENLY he was not sure; for as 
he listened to the music, he too be- 
came aware of a quiver of excitement 
that ran through his body from head to 
toe, like an electric current. The drums 
and tom-toms thumped. The reed-pipes 
sobbed and whimpered like dead souls 
astray on the outer rim of creation. The 
incense-smoke rose, rose. It was like a 
cloying, poisonous thing. It dried his 
mouth; it bulged his eyes. It touched 
his spine with hands of cruel softness. 
And he too commenced swaying from 
side to side, commenced droning: “Ho! 
RingindjS! DzSdzeroumbS — ” 

He tried to control himself. Did not 
entirely succeed — or more correctly, suc- 
ceeded with his intellect, not with his 
emotions. 

He grew increasingly conscious of a 
trembling and unclean elation, an elation 
that blended with fear, a fear that peaked 
to a climax, a throaty cry of horror and 
disgust quickly suppressed, as Igor Gara- 
tinsky got to his feet, ran to the center 
of the temple, and suddenly began leap- 
ing up and down. 

Up and down. ... Up and down. Beat- 
ing his breast in a frenzy, a paroxysm. 
Yelling loudly, gutturally: “Inhume! 
Inhume — ” 

Just the one word, over and over again ; 
and it was taken up by the crowd : “In- 
hume ! Inhumk ! lnhumb !” 

A cataract of voices. A challenge, a 
demand, a mad chorus, swelling and de- 
creasing in turns, dying away in a thin 
tremolo, again bursting forth in thick, 
palpable passion, like a satanic litany. 

“InkumS ! Inhume I” An insane, whirl- 
ing chant, with a taint of death, a savor 
of dread tortures, a horrible hectic fervor 
of excitement. . . . And a few moments 
later a curtain across the farther wall slid 
to one side; and there, outlined in a 
wedge of intensely white light, Jim saw 
an idol. 

It was a crude idol, six feet tall, rough- 
ly hewn out of some dark wood. No 
more than a tree-trunk on which the ax 
of a jungle priest-craftsman had whittled 
just enough to indicate arms and legs 


28 


TEMPEST OVER AFRICA 


and head. Bits of ivory had been set in 
to show a toothy grin. Stones had been 
inserted to represent the eyes. 

Once, in a museum, Jim had seen a 
similar statue. It had been labeled 
“Fetish God. from Central Africa.” 

That’s all it was. An idol. A mere 
block of wood, carved by the mere hand 
of man. 

Nothing to be afraid of? Exactly. 
Nothing to be afraid of, nothing to cause 
a white man, an up-to-date young Ameri- 
can, to shudder with superstitious awe. 

So he said to himself, tried to convince 
himself — and didn’t succeed. For there 
it was, a black bitter scrawl across his 
brain: awe, apprehension, terror, as he 
looked at the idol. Its lips were painted 
a bright red ; thick, sensuous, they curled 
in a leer — fiendish lips, malevolent. 

And the staring eyes, even more fiend- 
ish than the lips, more malevolent. Im- 
mobile eyes, made of stone. 

And yet — was it hallucination, a trick 
played by his quivering nerves? — those 
immobile stony eyes — were they not 
flickering, winking — winking down? 

Jim’s eyes followed the idol’s ; saw on 
its pedestal a number of knives and 
metal cups. Knives and cups. . . . The 
feeling — no, the knowledge — came to him 
that smelled of blood ; acrid, pungent, de- 
cayed; and dread in his soul, surging 
hysterically as, a moment later, through 
the curtain, stepped a man — ebony-black, 
naked except for a loin-cloth, his face 
plastered and splotched with crimson, a 
dagger in his right hand, round his neck 
dozens of witch-charms that flittered and 
rattled. 

The man was ridiculous in a fantastic 
way — as if, thought Jim, he had been 
created by a motion-picture director’s 
whisky-soaked imagination. Yet there 
was something stately about him, some- 
thing grandiose — and ominous. 

H E lifted his arms. The chanting 
stopped. The instruments blared 
swiftly, clamorously, while with a sidling 
movement the medicine-man whirled into 
a dance. 

His eyes were half-closed. His face 
was tense, ecstatic. Around and around, 
faster and faster he whirled, spinning 
like a top, in widening circles that swept 
him from the idol toward the onlookers, 
who watched shivering, spellbound — as, 
up there on the roof, Jim also watched, 
shivering, spellbound. 


He pulled himself together. ... A re- 
pulsive savage — that was all, he reflected 
— doing a ritual dance before a juju. A 
hideous, ludicrous dance. . . . 

Dance ? 

No. This was no mere dance, no mere 
physical stamping and jumping and glid- 
ing. This was life — the evil of life! 

This was passion — the evil of passion ! 
This was death — the evil of death! 

“Evil! Evil!” thought Jim, as the 
medicine-man whirled faster and faster, 
then suddenly stopped in front of a pale- 
skinned Amhara of the ruling caste. 

I MMEDIATELY, with startling abrupt- 
ness, the music broke off. The medi- 
cine-man’s left hand shot out, touching 
the Amhara on the shoulder. 

He spoke in a low voice: 

“Inhume I” 

“lnhum6 !” The word was echoed in a 
hushed chorus, “Inhumll” 

The Amhara stood quite still. 

“Aie — ” he cried. 

Just the single exclamation, weak, in- 
effectual, in a sort of blind puerile won- 
der. Then he turned. Jim saw him 
jumping back, taking a few running steps 
in the direction of the door. Saw a 
dozen Gallas pounce on him, pull him to 
the ground, carry him, fighting and strug- 
gling and kicking, up to the idol. Saw 
them rip off his clothes. Saw them tie 
him, naked, at the base of the pedestal. 
Saw the medicine-man lift his dagger, 
while another man held out a sacrificial 
cup to catch the victim’s blood. Heard 
the crowd’s monstrous insane demand, 
bleating savagely: 

“Inhume! Inhume! Inhume!” 

A hell of cruel, unclean sound it was, 
reverberating like a great echo : 

“Inhume I” — insistently, terribly. 

The cry became a living, pulsing thing 
— an evil creature with heart of stone 
and wide-gaping, obscene maw. 

Jim hated it. He wanted to take it by 
the throat and crush its life out. Yet 
straight through he felt the elemental 
power, the elemental, burning, vital 
energy of the thing. . . . 

“Inhume! lnhuml !” — the chant of 
Africa’s unclean tropical wizardry. 

Jim was appalled. He felt the skin of 
his neck stir and crawl. Incredible, this 
— this thing. A human sacrifice — blatant, 
melodramatic. And it was happening — 
before his eyes. It was a fact ! 

Dear God — a fact! 


How Jim M' Gregor sets out upon an amazing quest, and of the terrific adventures 
that befall him are related in our forthcoming November issue. 



Aboard the 

(rjlipp er- -1936 

A navy pilot gives us an exciting story 
of the latest development in aviation. 

By Blaine Miller and 
Jean Dupont Miller 


T HE real fireworks took place be- 
tween Honolulu and Samoa, but per- 
haps I’d better start just before the 
take-off from San Francisco, because 
trouble was brewing even then. Jim Can- 
field, the Division Superintendent of 
Oceanic Airways, summoned us all into 
his office. There wasn’t anything very 
strange about that ; he nearly always has 
a chat with us just before a flight. How- 
ever, this time he had the passenger-list 
spread before him, and he was frowning. 

“You’re going to have a little Japa- 
nese by the name of Yanto with you. 
Booked through to Yokohama,” he an- 
nounced in puzzled tones, glancing at 
Marty Kane. 

Marty, of course, is Captain of the 
Pacific Argonaut. I’m afraid I’m going 
to do a lot of talking about my skipper. 
He’s one swell guy, and nobody knows it 
better than the five of us who work with 
him on this trans-Pacific hop. 

“What’s the matter with Mr. Yanto?” 
“Nothing that I can lay my hands on. 
I do know that as a matter of prestige, 
if nothing else, we must deliver him 




29 


30 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


“That’s what it looks like. Something 
hot that he’s rushing home, and you can 
put your last dollar on the nose that 
many a statesman would commit murder 
for a peek at it.” 

“Maybe he has the rest of China in 
his pocket,” hazarded Bob Brady, first 
officer, who must have his little joke. 

“Our Mr. Yanto,” continued Canfield, 
“chartered a 247 from United at Newark 
to make connections here. Just a moment 
ago Slim Bierer, pilot, phoned me and 
gave me an earful. It seems that when 
he came down at Reno for gas, a couple 
of birds tried to stow away in the plane. 
The cops nabbed them for carrying con- 
cealed weapons. Mr. Yanto was very 
much upset by it all.” 



“They bailed out with a 
paeket dug out of the 
lining of Yanto’s coat.” 


safely in Nippon. That may be no small 
job if they catch up with him.” 

“Who is after him?” asked Marty. 

“I only wish I knew. This is the dope : 
I first became interested in Mr. Yanto 
when Mr. Takaharyi, the Japanese con- 
sul, came over this morning and wanted 
to have a look at the passenger-list.” 

You can bet we were giving Mr. Can- 
field some bright-eyed attention by that 
time. It was not the fact that he wanted 
to look over the passenger-list that was 
astonishing, but the fact that Jim should 
mention it at all. You see, we have a 
good deal of polite supervision from the 
little brown brothers. Particularly - in 
the case of the Argonaut, which leaves 
Samoa and flies west through the Mari- 
annas. That’s where the Pan-American 
outfit is lucky. Their bases are almost 
all on islands that belong to Uncle Sam. 
We have more international complica- 
tions to handle. 

Now, Jim was explaining: “It seems 
that our friend is making a mad sprint 
between Europe and the Far East. Does 
that mean anything to you?” 

“A treaty?” asked Berry, our engineer. 


The call-boy knocked on the door at 
that point and announced: “Twenty 
minutes till take-off, Mr. Kane.” 

The superintendent stood up. “So that 
is the set-up, boys. Personally, I’d rather 
you were flying a case of T.N.T., but 
since you have him with you, deliver 
him and his effects, sunny-side up.” 

As we started out the door, Canfield 
called after us : “Oh, Marty, your favorite 
little supercargo is going to be aboard.” 

“I don’t get you.” 

Marty’s voice was steel on ice, and I 
knew he understood Canfield perfectly 
well. If it had been any of the rest of 


ABOARD THE CLIPPER 


31 


us, we would have shut up. But of 
course the superintendent is privileged. 

“Miss Arlene Edison,” he proclaimed, 
“will occupy Seat Three, Compartment 
Two, as far as Honolulu — and farther if 
there is a vacancy.” 

“We’ll get her there along with the 
mail and the passengers,” snapped Marty. 

Jim’s booming laughter followed us 
out. I could have wished he’d chosen 
another time and subject on which to 
rib the skipper. You see, I’ve been with 
Marty longer than the others. We were 
both fresh out of the Navy, and we were 
with the trans-Atlantic outfit on the east 
coast. Everyone there suspected that 
Marty was sweet on Arlene Edison. I 
was the only one who knew they’d been 
really in love with each other. When 
they broke up, it had hurt Marty a lot. 

As I walked down the ramp with the 
skipper, I started talking very fast about 
a plan I had to cut out the static between 
Samoa and the Mariannas. I saw him 
stiffen suddenly. I followed his eyes; 
and there, sure enough was Arlene, trim 
and smart in her tailored suit. 

I don’t blame him for falling for her. 
She was a little Kentucky girl with black 
curls and big gray eyes. She’d been a 
stewardess when we first met her : capable 
and clever, she handled the cash custom- 
ers with just the right mixture of cor- 
diality and reserve. She’d been promoted 
to hostess at the company hotel in Samoa. 
Lots of passengers lay over there for a 
holiday on the beach before they take 
planes either south or west. 

N OW there wasn’t any way of avoid- 
ing a meeting; they both said hello 
very quickly and entirely too politely. 
Just to ease things, I piped up with an 
idiotic remark: 

“By golly, if it isn’t the queen of Pago 
Pago we have with us this trip I” 

“How was your leave ?” asked the 
skipper in a dead level voice. 

“Don’t think this is a holiday, you 
two,” said Arlene, looking at me but 
speaking to Marty. “I was over here 
buying fishing-tackle, and bathing-caps, 
and draperies for the new cocktail lounge 
— and, oh yes, games for the long winter 
nights.” 

“The natives,” cracked I, “know bet- 
ter things to do with a tropical night 
than to play Monopoly.” 

“The natives,” replied Arlene lightly, 
“don’t have the blessings of civilization.” 

“No,” said Marty rather bitterly, “they 
don’t even have careers for women.” 


Their eyes met, then, their glances 
clashing. Marty raised his fingers to his 
cap, most formally, and strode off to the 
ship. Oh, I could see that it was going to 
be a swell trip: the skipper’s lost love 
aboard, and Mr. Yanto with his particu- 
lar brand of trouble ! 

T HE passengers were already in their 
place and the engines were turning 
over with a quiet pulsating exhaust when 
Marty took his place in the captain’s 
seat. The oil temperature was already 
up to sixty degrees, and Marty gave the 
signal to the ground crew to cast off the 
lines. The leading chief clapped his 
hands over his head, and Marty gave the 
outboard starboard engine a burst of 
gun to pull us away from the float. 

We taxied on out past the breakwater, 
and turning up one engine at a time, 
Marty turned us around in circles for a 
couple of minutes. Satisfied with the 
power-plants, he headed into the stiff 
wind which was blowing over San Bruno 
Pass. Then, with a quick look to see 
that we had a clear path ahead, he pushed 
the throttles wide open. 

As the wheel was pulled clear back, 
the Argonaut began to plow ahead into 
the whitecaps. Immediately the bow 
had ridden up on the bow-wave, Marty 
pushed the wheel forward and the plane 
climbed up on top of the swell, putting 
herself on the step. Planing along in this 
fashion I could feel her picking up speed. 
I always get a kick out of a seaplane 
take-off, skimming along with the white 
spray being tossed aside by the hull. 

Finally, the hull lifted higher and 
higher out of the water until she was just 
'barely touching. Marty held her there 
a bit longer, and then with a gentle pull 
on the wheel, the Argonaut became an 
airplane instead of a fast speed-boat. 
With the last bit of suction on the bot- 
tom removed, the plane leaped ahead as 
if eager to get going. 

Marty always climbs the Argonaut 
slowly because we generally are loaded 
down. But we had enough altitude when 
we reached Market Street to go over the 
new bay bridges. As we headed out the 
Golden Gate we were met by a wall of 
whirling fog. Down below, I could see 
steamers fading out of sight. But it 
didn’t bother us. Marty went on instru- 
ments and continued his slow climb as 
the clammy vapor closed in on us. Once 
we cleared the Gate, Marty put us on 
our course, and the compass scarcely 
moved after we swung into our heading. 


32 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


We had about the usual lot of passen- 
gers that trip: Mostly business men — 
officials of oil, rubber and copra com- 
panies. Some of them we knew from 
previous trips. You can imagine we 
all took a look at Mr. Yanto as soon as 
opportunity afforded. He was sitting 
serenely and reading a book on begonia- 
culture. He and Arlene were in the same 
compartment. 

L ATER we admitted to each other that 
j we had also looked for some one who 
might be taking a pointed interest in Mr. 
Yanto. It just goes to show how poor an 
amateur detective can be. Our only un- 
usual passenger was a Dr. Dantzlar, and 
we checked him off the list right away. 
He was a big, awkward man who wore 
glasses and a Vandyke. He was very 
genial and open with everyone. He told 
everyone who would listen that he was 
going out to the Orient on an expedition 
dedicated to marine biology, and he in- 
sisted on keeping right with him a clumsy 
square pack which he said held priceless 
scientific instruments of his own design. 

The fog opened up about seven o’clock, 
and Marty took a blow. Bob Brady was 
at the controls with Harry Thatch. My 
time off is apt to be snatched whenever 
I can get it. Marty and Arlene came 
forward together to the pilots’ compart- 
ment. I couldn’t help thinking that the 
skipper looked gayer than I’d seen him 
any time in months. 

She must have been thinking along the 
same lines, for she said: “This trans- 
pacific job was always what you wanted, 
wasn’t it, Marty? I’m so glad all your 
dreams have come true.” 

“But they haven’t all come true — you 
should know that.” 

She didn’t answer. Maybe she hadn’t 
heard what he said. 

After that, he took her up to the navi- 
gator’s compartment. That’s where you 
feel that you could reach into the rush- 
ing air and pull down a star. They were 
there about half an hour and I’ve a sus- 
picion they discovered what I could have 
told them at San Francisco. . . . 

Along about eight-thirty I went after 
a snack. Marty was back on duty, and 
Thatch took the key for me. I took my 
sandwich and sat down by Arlene. She 
looked as though she might have been 
shedding a few tears; and I took a 
chance on giving her a little Dutch uncle 
talk. 

“You can’t have your cake and eat it, 
too,” I reminded her, finally. “Oceanic 


Airways doesn’t have married women 
employees.” 

“I know. Sometimes I think nothing 
else matters but Marty. Other times, 
when I think of sitting in an apartment 
in San Francisco with nothing to do but 
wait for the Pacific Argonaut to come in 
— well, I’m not sure I could stand it.” 

“You modern girls,” I pronounced, 
feeling very judicial and wise, “are swell 
when it comes to the quick and clever 
stuff, but you weaken when there is an 
endurance run.” 

“What do you know about it?” asked 
Marty’s girl fiercely. 

“Not much,” I admitted; “only I had 
a grandmother who was married to a 
clipper-ship captain. She used to wait 
two and three years for her man to come 
in — ” 

Arlene didn’t say anything to that; 
but when I started back to my key, she 
asked me: “Was she ever sorry?” 

“The old lady?” I shook my head. 
“She used to say she’d do it all over 
again.” 

The passengers settled down for the 
night, the compartments were darkened, 
and up forward we tended strictly to our 
knitting. Weather reports came in from 
Manila, Samoa and Pearl Harbor, full 
and clear. Occasionally, one or the other 
of us took a turn through the ship just 
to be sure that all was well. On my last 
inspection you couldn’t have found any- 
where a more peaceful scene. 

It was all the more shock, then, when 
the pilots’-compartment door banged open 
around four-thirty, and I turned to see 
Arlene. Her face was white and fright- 
ened. 

“Marty! Marty!” she called. 

Even though he must have been 
startled, the skipper, perfectly cool, 
turned the wheel over to Bob. Then he 
turned to Arlene. 

“What’s the matter?” 

“Come — quick ! One of the passengers 
has been badly hurt.” 

T HERE isn’t much I can tell from per- 
sonal experience of what happened 
during the Honolulu lay-over. I had to 
be present at all the investigations, of 
course, but the rest of my time was taken 
checking up on the sets and working on 
the generator. I do know that all of us 
were relieved when Marty taxied the 
Argonaut into the wind, opened the 
throttle, and pulled her tail off Pearl 
Harbor. We didn’t kid ourselves, though, 
that we were leaving our troubles behind. 


ABOARD THE CLIPPER 


33 


“I’m so glad all your 
dreams ha ve come true, 
Marty,’’ Arlene said. 
“But they haven’t 
all come true — you 
should know that,” 
Marty replied. 


One thing had been accomplished by 
the Honolulu office. They’d managed 
to calm Mr. Trumbull down. He was the 
passenger who had been slugged, some- 
time between my last inspection and the 
time Arlene heard him groaning and dis- 
covered him. His clothing and one hand- 
bag he had with him had been ripped and 
slashed by some earnest searcher. When 
he stepped off the Argonaut at Pearl 
Harbor, he was mad enough to swear out 
a warrant for the crew and passengers. 
But in the end they’d talked him into 
keeping quiet. Who had done it? We 
didn’t have the ghost of an idea. 

One interesting item had been brought 
to light by the investigations. After the 
lights had been dimmed, Mr. Trumbull 
had changed places with the polite little 
Oriental. The American had an idea 
that there was less noise farther aft. Mr. 
Yanto had volunteered the accommoda- 
tion, and undoubtedly Mr. Trumbull had 
taken on the chin something not intended 
for him. 

About midnight Marty had come out 
to Pearl Harbor to take a look at the 
weather map, as he usually does. 

“Well, what’s the answer?” I’d asked. 

He shrugged his shoulders wearily. 

“There isn’t any that we can find.” 

“Are we going on?” 

“Sure. The company can’t hold up a 
mail schedule.” 

Our take-off was as smooth as usual. 
Marty might have been lifting a scouting 
plane into the air instead of a job weigh- 
ing over twenty tons. Anyhow, as Oahu 
dropped behind us, I unreeled the anten- 
na, cut in the generator, and established 
communication. Pearl Harbor answered 
up right away with “v’s.” So then I 
reached out for Palmyra. 

It timed just right. Bob Brady shoved 
a piece of paper in front of me. 

“Bat this out, Jerry. Or maybe you 
aren’t ready yet?” 



Bob always says that to me, because I 
have red hair and he knows it makes me 
mad. 

“You big moose! I was all set when 
you left the water.” 

It was the usual departure report. Air- 
speed, wind, passengers and expected 
time of arrival. Then, on my own, I re- 
minded Lewis, at the key at Palmyra, 
that he owed me a bet on the Giants. 

“R ” — which means “Message received” 
came through brightly. It was followed 
by the weather. Lewis denied the bet. 
The big welsher! 

Marty had the first control watch. I 
glanced over at him. He wore his usual 
intent look ; yet he must have had plenty 
to think about. For one thing, Arlene 
was still aboard, in the seat by Mr. 
Yanto. 

As I sat playing with the dials, our 
call came through with an urgency which 
any operator will tell you means some- 
thing hot. 

PASSENGER METCALF OF ORIGINAL FLIGHT 
LIST FOUND BOUND AND GAGGED IN HONO- 
LULU AFTER TAKEOFF PERIOD PLACE TAKEN 
BY GEORGE METSOL AT LAST MINUTE 
PERIOD KEEP CLOSE OBSERVATION PENDING 
INVESTIGATION 

What a sweet kettle of fish that was I 
“Let Thatch take your key,” Marty 
directed. “Go back and see what you 
can find out. Look Metsol over.” 


34 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


As I went through the passageway, I 
noticed that the tropical heat had al- 
ready begun to penetrate the flying boat. 
This, combined with the droning of the 
engines, had induced drowsiness in most 
of the passengers. Arlene, however, was 
awake, staring into space with a none too 
happy expression on her face. The little 
Japanese was peacefully sleeping, his 
book on begonias spread out across his 
chest. Next to him sat the Metsol bird, 
a fair, lean young chap who never took 
his eyes off his book. I beckoned to 
Arlene, and when she came and stood in 




the passageway beside me, I whispered 
the situation to her. 

“What do you make out of it? Can 
you shed any light?” 

She shook her head : “I’ll keep my eyes 
open, though.” 

“Good girl.” 

I was hastening back to Marty to re- 
port, when Dr. Dantzlar buttonholed me. 

“My boat,” said he, “the boat of my 
expedition — I have word should be at 
latitude 12°37', longitude 159°4T. That 
is on the plane’s course, is it not?” 

“Just about.” 


He asked affably: 

“Could I send a radio and tejl them 
please that we fly over them ? It would 
give much pleasure. They would be en- 
couraged to see that their leader goes on 
to — how do you say? — burn the path 
ahead ?” 

It appeared to be a logical request. Nor 
could Marty see any reason to deny it 
when I explained matters to him. 

The skipper plotted the boat’s position 
on a chart. It was directly on our course. 
Laying down the distance with his di- 
viders, he figured for a minute. 


ABOARD THE CLIPPER 


35 



as if she were loaded with dynamite. 


“We’ll be over them in about three- 
quarters of an hour,” he decided. 

“That is good ! That is fine ! ” beamed 
the scientist. “Now the message, if you 
will.” 

“Do you know their call and fre- 
quency?” I asked. 

“Oh, sure. Sure.” He gave them to 
me, along with the message, which ap- 
peared perfectly normal and routine. 

WILL ARRIVE YOUR VICINITY NINE O’CLOCK 

HAVE INSTRUMENTS ABOARD 

Now that I look back on it, I realize 
that we were all as stupid as guinea hens. 
I shifted my frequency and gave the call. 
It was answered as promptly as if some- 
body at the other end had been sitting 
and waiting. That should have told me 
something. 

“We’ll let you know when we sight 
them,” I promised Dr. Dantzlar. 

“Ah, that is very fine service. Very 
fine,” beamed our friend, and bowed him- 
self out. 

We sat and discussed developments, 
not very happy over any of it. The best 
we could do was to hope to heaven that 
when the situation broke it would not 


happen in the air. Presently, Marty’s 
hawk eyes picked out a speck on the 
horizon, which a few minutes later de- 
veloped into a small auxiliary schooner. 
We had hit her right on the nose just 
when Marty said we would. I wasn’t 
surprised. He never misses. 

Brady had taken the wheel sometime 
before. Now, Marty took it back. “Go 
tell Dr. Dantzlar, Bob, that we’ll be 
over his boat in five minutes.” 

T HINGS happened so fast from then 
on, that it’s a little hard to remember 
their sequence. I’m sure, though, that 
we heard the scream before Bob could 
have reached the compartment where 
Arlene and Yanto were. It came to our 
ears, high and thin, above the normal 
noises of the plane. We sat electrified. 
A moment passed. Then we heard shots. 
Two of them — from an automatic. 

Thatch, who was off duty, had been up 
in the engine-room. He came down on 
the double, and Marty turned the wheel 
over to him. Disturbed as he was, he 
went through the whole routine, repeat- 
ing the course and our speed, as calm as 
a Buddhist priest at a ritual. 




36 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


If you don’t think it took self-control 
to sit by my key, you have another think 
coming. But if the skipper had wanted 
me, I knew he’d have said so. Thatch 
and I sat with our ears pinned back. 

. Suddenly Thatch cried : “Look, Jerry ! 
Down and aft!” 

I was just in time to catch a glimpse of 
two great white mushrooms floating away 
from the Argonaut — parachutes! We 
were wild ! 

Marty came back, his face white and 
grim: “We’re a choice bunch of boobs. 
Dantzlar had two ’chutes in that precious 
pack of his. He and Metsol have bailed 
out with a packet belonging to Mr. Yanto 
which they dug out of the lining of his 
coat. They’ll make the sloop nicely, 
thanks to us.” 

“The shots?” I asked. 

“Bob’s been pretty badly hurt, I’m 
afraid. Arlene’s giving him first aid. 
Dantzlar and Metsol took charge of Com- 
partment Three and ransacked it. Arlene 
was objecting, and they were treating her 
roughly when Bob jumped them, and 
they let him have it, damn them ! ” 

We were stunned for an instant, but 
Marty soon rallied. 

“Thatch, go back and unbind Yanto, 
and keep the other compartments calmed 
down. Jerry, send this message, and then 
come sit by me.” 

This is what we poured into Jim Can- 
field’s astonished ears at Alameda: 

DANTZLAR AND METSOL BAILED OUT WITH 

PAPERS STOLEN FROM YANTO PERIOD BOTH 

PICKED UP BY SCHOONER PERIOD SEA CALM 

WIND ONE PERIOD REQUEST PERMISSION 

LAND AND EFFECT RECOVERY OF STOLEN 

PROPERTY 

The answer came back promptly and 
was just what we might have expected: 

PERMISSION NOT GRANTED 

I slid into the pilot’s seat next to 
Marty and handed it over to him. He 
nodded. He’d been expecting it, too. No 
matter how Jim felt, he couldn’t give an 
official okay to any such foray. But even 
while I was sending the message, we’d 
wheeled on our course and were flying 
above the auxiliary in wide, slow circles. 
Dantzlar and Metsol were being hauled 
aboard neatly. 

It takes one of these calm lads who 
doesn’t bluster and seldom swears, to get 
really mad. Marty was so sore that his 
whole appearance had changed. His eyes 
shone, and his jaw stuck out in a way I 
knew meant trouble. 


The schooner was undoubtedly carry-' 
ing firearms, being on the mission she 
was. I knew that no matter how angry 
he was, Marty wouldn’t risk taking his 
passengers into a hail of gunfire. We had 
automatics, since we carried mail, but 
that was all. No, I didn’t see how his 
rage was going to get him anywhere this 
time. But I was wrong. 

“Phone up Berry and find out how 
many night drift flares we have.” 

Boy, oh boy, oh boy! That was the 
answer, of course. I was so excited that 
I could barely get the words out as I 
reported: “Fifteen, Berry says, and we 
can get a new supply at Pago Pago.” 

“Make contact with Dantzlar’s outfit 
and tell them we’re going to sink their 
schooner, so they’d better take to their 
lifeboats.” 

Through my phones I could hear the 
receiver clicking on the schooner’s set as 
the operator turned around, but he didn’t 
answer me. They probably thought that 
Marty was merely bluffing. 

I T was Berry and I who did the dirty 
work — a minor part, though it sounds 
spectacular. It was Marty at the wheel 
who did the trick. If there’s ever been 
sweet flying in the world, it was that day 
in the middle of the old Pacific. 

You know how those flares are. Once 
they’re afire, all the angels in heaven 
couldn’t put them out. Berry had a 
bucket of water, and we put on heavy 
flying gloves. You have to moisten the 
flares before they will ignite. So he’d wet 
them and hand them to me, and I’d let 
them go through the port ! 

The first flare missed, but it came close 
enough to make the men aboard scamper 
for cover. Oh, it was a swell show! 
Marty came lower the next time, for he 
figured they’d stay under cover now. 

The engines were howling as we 
walked down on them to leeward. We 
were stepping plenty. Again, Marty gaye 
the signal, and I let one fly.^'Pown she 
went, a curling flame following it. It 
landed smack on the after-deck of the 
little craft. Well, we got action that 
time. Some one jumped out of the cabin 
and grabbed the flare. You should Have 
seen him let it go! We couldn’t hear 
him, of course, but from his actions he 
was bellowing like a stuck steer. Three 
others came up to help him, and they 
finally kicked it overboard. The man at 
the helm started zigzagging. 

Marty smiled. He held up two fingers, 
and Berry plunged two flares into the 


ABOARD THE CLIPPER 


37 


bucket. We came down to about the 
height of their radio mast, and both pots 
hit the deck. It didn’t take long after 
that. I’ll say this much for the fire- 
brigade aboard: they were pretty game. 
But there was one they couldn’t dislodge. 
It had rolled into the well of the gasoline 
tank. Smoke and flame started breaking 
out. Marty gave us the signal to cease 
firing ; and as we went over them again, 
we saw that they were scrambling into 
their small lifeboat. 

They pulled away from the crackling 
vessel as if their lives depended upon it. 
Nor were they wrong. Marty swung out 
in a wide circle, which just goes to show 
he does the right thing by instinct. From 
our safe distance we saw the schooner 
let go as if she were loaded with dyna- 
mite. When the tower of green water 
subsided, there was nothing left but a 
ring of debris around a whitish blister, 
where she’d gone down. 

I went back to my key and sent 
Marty’s latest to Canfield: 

SCHOONER HAS EXPLODED PERIOD FOUR 

MEN ADRIFT IN SMALL OPEN BOAT PERIOD 

ESSENTIAL TO LAND AND RESCUE PERSON- 
NEL PERIOD SEA CALM WIND ONE 

They gave me an “R.” 

We waited, scarcely breathing. 

Then Alameda answered, using the 
speed bug: 

PERMISSION GRANTED TO MAKE LANDING 

FOR RESCUE PURPOSES PERIOD YOU’RE AN- 
OTHER. 

Ha! Try to fool Jim Canfield. He 
knows Marty even better than I do. 

It was easy after that. Marty brought 
the Argonaut around into the wind and 
set her down as pretty as you please, then 
taxied over to the rowboat. Berry and 
I were on the reception-committee stand- 
ing on the port water wing. As they came 
aboard, I frisked them for weapons, and 
Berry lashed their hands behind them. 
We stowed them away in various com- 
partments, keeping them separated as 
much as possible. 

When I searched Dantzlar, I found 
Mr. Yanto’s papers still sewed up in their 
silk packet in the pocket of a rubber life 
jacket. They were a bit damp and limp 
but that was all. I turned them over 
to Marty. Dantzlar, with his spectacles 
gone and his hair mussed, was the per- 
fect picture of a man on a desperate mis- 
sion, such as we amateur sleuths had 
been seeking. He admitted that he had 
knocked out Mr. Trumbull, thinking he 


was Yanto. Unsuccessful as a lone wolf, 
he had resorted to an alternate plan 
which called for Metsol and the schooner, 
which had been planted on the Argo- 
naut’s routine course several days earlier. 

W HEN we were in the air again, 
headed for Samoa all shipshape, 
Marty gave the controls over to Thatch 
and asked me to come aft to witness the 
return of Yanto’s packet. The little man 
bobbed up and down as though he were 
on springs. 

Marty said to him, severely: “Don’t 
get the idea that I care whether you get 
your papers through or not. But nobody 
can pirate an Argonaut and get away 
with it.” 

Then Yanto said almost what Dantzlar 
had said earlier in the day : 

“Very fine service. Very fine.” 
“Yeah? Well, next time you have a 
load of dynamite, please take a row- 
boat!” And the skipper turned his back 
on the cause of our recent tribulations. 

That left him facing Arlene. They had 
that look again of two people who are 
starving for what they are too stubborn 
to reach out and take. 

Suddenly, without warning, Arlene’s 
eyes filled with tears and she sat down. 

“I’ve been so stupid! So stupid! If 
you’d been hurt — you might have been.” 

Marty put his hand on her shoulder 
and made his voice gruff to hide the ten- 
derness in it. 

“You weren’t stupid. You did very 
well. It was a nasty experience.” 

She shook her head. “That isn’t what 
I mean at all. I should have been like 
Jerry’s grandmother, and it’s too late, 
now.” 

The skipper shot me a startled glance. 
Naturally, it was all gibberish to him. 

“She’s trying to tell you that she wants 
you to ask her to marry you again,” I 
explained. 

Then I bowed out. 

It must have worked, for a little while 
later they came to the radio desk, all gay 
and shining. 

“How about sending this message for 
us?” asked Marty. 

PLEASE HAVE NAVY CHAPLAIN MEET ARGO- 
NAUT NUMBER SEVEN ON ARRIVAL PAGO 
PAGO 

Since there is no place to go in Sa- 
moa, and since the whole population al- 
ways comes down to meet us anyway, 
that was an unnecessary message, but 
I’ve never sent one I enjoyed more. 



cARMS and (JftCEN 


Illustrated by George Avison 


M AX JOHL came into the Collec- 
tors’ Club one afternoon and ad- 
vanced on me with intent eye. 
Max is the type of man usually referred 
to as “a prince,” but he has one besetting 
vice: he collects stamps. 

“What’s become of Martin Burnside?” 
he demanded. “That chap who collects 
arms and armor, you know.” 

“In Europe or Mexico or China or 
somewhere,” I replied. “Why?” 

“I’ve got something he ought to have,” 
Max said. “Got it up in Vermont with 
a bunch of old letters, from a farmhouse. 
A lot of ’em were too old to interest me, 
not having any stamps. I don’t think 
you can make it into any story, because 
there’s no story in it, but here’s the 
stuff.” 

He started to empty his pockets, then 
paused and fastened me with his bright 
and glittering eye. 

“You know something about Vermont- 
ers?” he said. “They don’t talk.” 

“So I heard Woollcott say over the 
radio recently. How did you learn it?” 

“Read this stuff, and you’ll see. By 
the way, it’s about the first submarine 
ever put into service. And here’s a piece 
of the submarine that was labeled and 
ticketed and put away with the letters.” 


He laid down a chunk of wood, ex- 
plaining that he had lost the label. Then 
he put down a batch of old letters. 

“Here’s a funny thing,” he observed: 
“All those letters and so forth are just 
about one conversation in a New York 
tavern. From different angles and so 
forth, and from different people. One 
of ’em is the report of a Yankee spy. 
How they all got collected in one bunch, 
is past me; not that it matters. But I 
expect a whole book could be written 
just about that one tavern conversation ! 
First from one angle, then from another, 
just like those letters. Even the spy! 
His name isn’t signed to his report, and 
there’s nothing to show which one of the 
bunch he was, except inference — which 
is plain.” 

“The idea is admirable,” I said dryly. 
“But I’m not writing books. If it’s so 
easy, why don’t you do it?” 

Max grinned expansively. 

“The answer is also easy : I don’t know 
how. Besides, my wife hollers already 
because I put in so much time of eve- 
nings on my stamp albums. No, this is 
your job; so go ahead and do it. Give 
that relic of the submarine to Martin 
Burnside, if you like, for his collection. 
And remember, do as I say: Cover the 
38 



XXI — “ The First Submarine” : It dates back to the American 
Revolution, and is the basis of one of the most interesting 
stories in all this fine series. 

By H. Bedford -Jones 


story from different angles, the way Con- 
rad does. Then no one will care whether 
there’s a real story or not.” 

Alas, Max suffers from the delusion 
that all his friends are Conrads, or Bay- 
ards, or Beau Brummels— which is no 
doubt one reason why he has so many 
friends. 

Upon delving into the letters and re- 
ports here assembled, however, I was at 
once struck by the remarkable fact he 
had mentioned. They did deal almost 
exclusively with one evening’s conversa- 
tion in the ordinary room of the old 
Fraunces’ Tavern, a famous New York 
hostelry of Revolutionary days. And they 
did cover this evening’s talk from various 
angles, dipping by the way into all man- 
ner of things from naval tactics to the 
art of building chimneys. 

It was a catholic and glorious conver- 
sation, such as obtained among a group 
of kindred souls, all British officers of 
family and culture, who no doubt gath- 
ered regularly in this tavern room to re- 
lax over long pipes and rich port. At 
this time the British held New York; 
Washington and his shabby Continentals 
were encamped somewhere among the 
Jersey marshes; and Yorktown was still 
long years away. 


This particular night was rainy and 
foggy, so that the ruddy fire on the wide 
hearth was grateful. The only man not 
in uniform was one who sat somewhat 
by himself at a side table, busily writing 
letters and reports, quite unmindful of 
the officers who dropped in by ones and 
twos. He wore a frieze greatcoat and 
garments of very rude country cut, and 
had a rugged countenance. 

The officers eyed him askance until 
Major Severance of the Quartermaster’s 
Department came in, greeted the others 
jovially, then advanced to the lone man. 

“Ha, Bushnell!” he exclaimed cor- 
dially, shaking hands. “Glad to see you 
again. Egad, man, you look busy! 
Gentlemen, let me introduce Mr. Bush- 
nell, from Vermont. A loyal subject of 
the King, God bless -him, who has done 
us splendid service with his supplies of 
forage and other matters.” 

Bushnell being thus vouched for, was 
prayed to join the circle, but begged to 
be excused. Unsmiling, taciturn, he 
pointed to his accounts. 

“If my presence irks you gentlemen, 
I’ll withdraw,” he said. 

This offer was set aside instantly ; and 
as he evidently desired, he was left to 
himself. 

39 



40 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


The officers were of various ranks, 
some of the navy, some of the army, half 
a dozen in all. The talk, as was inevi- 
table, fell upon the destruction of the 
Warrior two days earlier ; a twenty-four- 
gun brig which had been blown up at her 
moorings during the night hours — it was 
said, by some infernal contrivance of the 
Yankees. 

Another officer entered, cursing the 
fog; he brought with him a lieutenant 
from the Warrior, the honorable Fitz- 
roy Spence Seymour, who knew most of 
those present. The circle was complete. 

“Come along, Seymour ! Tell us what 
actually happened aboard,” cried one of 
the officers. “What touched off her 
magazine ?” 

“Nothing, apparently,” drawled Sey- 
mour, reaching for one of the long clay 
pipes and the box of Virginia. “Her 
magazine, I believe, is intact to this 
moment, and safely at the bottom of the 
harbor.” 

“Nonsense, my dear fellow ! ” observed 
one Captain Hart of the Royal Rifles, a 
Colonial by birth. By some accounts he 
hailed from Maine. “I know Head- 
quarters is trying to hush the matter up, 
but no need for you to assist ’em. Egad, 
man, the explosion was heard everywhere 
in the city ! ” 

The man in the gray frieze looked up 
from his accounts for a moment, then 
went back to work. His quill did not 
move rapidly, however. 

S EYMOUR laughed. “I don’t deny 
the explosion, gentlemen ; being watch- 
officer at the moment, I was only too 
devilish aware of it.” 

“Good ! Now we’ll have information,” 
exclaimed Major Severance. “Y’ know, 
Seymour, I’ve a guinea wagered that the 
thing happened because some of your 
seamen were smoking at the time.” 

“Not likely,” intervened another. 
“Regulations order all smoking aboard 
done over a tub of water ; eh, Seymour ?” 

The latter nodded, and got his long 
pipe alight. 

“Right. What happened, was very 
simple — and damned mysterious. I had 
caught a muffled thumping, as though a 
small boat were lying alongside without 
fenders. Where it came from, no one 
could say. I had lanterns lowered, in 
case a log were hitting the hull, but 
nothing of the sort. The sound came 
from somewhere forward. As it was 
apparently of no consequence, I forgot 
it. Half an hour later, without the least 


warning, there was a heavy explosion 
somewhere by the forward counter ; 
heavy enough to fling me from my feet 
and heave the ship sharply over. She 
went down like a stone. It certainly 
was not the magazine.” 

“What was it, then?” came prompt 
demand. 

Seymour shrugged lightly. “Who 
knows? I believe the damned rebels 
floated down a mine of some sort. The 
theory is ridiculous and absurd, I grant 
you. Furnish a better one if you can.” 

C APTAIN HART, as the port came 
around, refilled his glass. Amid the 
confusion of talk consequent upon Sey- 
mour’s words, he lifted the glass to the 
candlelight. His eyes, however, struck 
over the ruby liquid. They met the gaze 
of the man in gray frieze, who had 
raised his head and was regarding Hart 
fixedly. Into the features of Bushnell 
came no change of expression ; but Hart’s 
brows went up quizzically, and he moved 
the wineglass a trifle as though in silent 
toast, then put it to his lips and smiled 
as he drank, his eyes still on Bushnell. 
The latter resumed his occupation, in- 
differently. 

No one else, it seemed, observed this 
byplay. 

“Well, gentlemen, damme if the whole 
fleet might not as well follow this brig,” 
exclaimed an artillery officer, smacking 
his lips over his port. “The fleet’s been 
of no use for the past fifty years — call it 
treason if you like ! So cursed much of 
tactics that there’s never a battle of any 
decisive consequence. Your ships prowl 
around and around like dogs afraid to 
come to close quarters.” 

“Sink me, sir, if that speech doesn’t 
smack of treason indeed ! ” hotly ex- 
claimed Sir John Brill, who was a navy 
paymaster. His rubicund cheeks puffed 
out angrily. “The navy, sir, is the bul- 
wark of Britain ! Damme and sink me, 
if. I like such words, in a city that’s 
ridden with spies!” 

The good beginning of an excellent 
quarrel was promptly stoppered by Sey- 
mour, whose drawl cut into the tobacco- 
smoke with astonishing effect. 

“Stuff and nonsense, Sir John ! Smith 
is dead right about it.” 

“What, sir?” cried Brill. “You, an 
officer of the navy, to entertain such 
dashed heresy?” 

“Precisely, and I’m not alone in it,” 
said Seymour. “Haven’t you heard of 
Clerk and his pamphlets?” 


ARMS AND MEN 


41 


“This odd boat opened 


to let out a man. He 
looked at the barge. 



“All bosh!” — and Brill snorted hotly. 
“Absolute bosh, sir!” 

“Who’s Clerk?” asked Major Sever- 
ance. 

“Some damned witless Scot,” Sir John 
Brill snorted again. “A daft fellow who 
prints letters telling the navy how to con- 
duct itself.” 

“On the contrary, his pamphlets are to 
the mark,” said Seymour lazily, puffing 
away at his pipe. “He claims that since 
the navy is superior in gunnery and gen- 
eral ability to all other navies, it 
should abandon its hold-off tactics and 
come to close quarters with the enemy. 
Come to a furious mingled strife, as he 
puts it. His pamphlets have been widely 
distributed in navy circles.” 

“Who reads ’em ?” demanded Brill. 



“Admiral Rodney, for one,” said Sey- 
mour in sly triumph. “And the younger 
crowd generally. D’ye know, I met a 
strange fellow in the Worcester frigate 
last year, a chap named Horatio Nelson 
— a lieutenant now, I believe. This was 
on the Jamaica station. He used to 
swear up and down that some day he’d be 
an admiral ; and when he did, he’d show 
the world that Clerk’s tactics are correct. 
An odd fellow, this, a bit off in his head, 
I fancy. Used to talk of a nimbus of 
glory and whatnot. But it goes to show 
that all ranks of the service aren’t so 
self-satisfied.” 

“Right, Seymour,” spoke up another 
navy man, while Sir John snorted into 
his tobacco-smoke. “And more by token, 
I’ve heard that the French are picking 
up copies of Clerk’s pamphlets. They 
say that Admiral Suffren has been study- 
ing them.” 

HAT of it? Why, here’s a toast to 
’em, and may they come under our 
guns ere Michaelmas!” cried Major 
Severance heartily. The toast was drunk 
with loud acclaim. “If they come to the 
help of the American rebels,” he went 
on, “it means a merry war and a good 
one ! ” 

“Aye,” said Captain Hart; and 
through the gray drifting haze of tobacco- 
smoke his gaze once again struck upon 
that of Bushnell the Vermonter. 




42 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


“Not a bit of it, egad!” exclaimed a 
Headquarters Staff man. “I have posi- 
tive information that before the snow 
flies, this audacious fellow Washington 
will be ready to surrender. His army is 
melting away daily. What d’ye say, 
Hart? You know these rebels, what?” 

“Very well indeed,” Captain Hart re- 
joined coolly. “I’d wager anything, 
though, that this Washington doesn’t 
give in so readily.” 

“Done for a guinea, sir I Before the 
first snow.” 

“Taken, sir, taken,” rejoined Hart 
with an affable smile. Smiling, he was 
one man ; smiling or talking, as he did 
very well indeed, his quick, hard person- 
ality holding the attention of his listen- 
ers. 

When his features fell into repose, 
however, when he withdrew into himself, 
his face lost its affability and took on 
harsher lines. Although no one noticed 
it, his face then looked not unlike the 
face of Bushnell, who sat leaning for- 
ward with his chin in the collar of his 
gray frieze coat. Something of the same 
rugged nature was in the aspect of each 
man, one a Vermonter, the other a 
British officer. 

"I DON’T like this talk, gentlemen, 
1 damme if I do,” broke out Sir John 
Brill testily, as he laid aside his pipe. 
“Such words are scurvy folly; and by 
gad, I for one will hear no more of ’em ! 
We know too well that the city is full of 
spies, even the army itself. I didn’t 
come here to listen to folly. Good night 
to you, gentlemen!” 

And rubicund Sir John stalked out. 
A chuckle and a grin passed around. 

“Off to see that widow in the Bouw- 
erie,” said somebody. 

“Where did the man get his title?” 
Seymour asked lazily. 

“Inherited it, of course; fell slap into 
it last year, from a long distance. I say, 
gentlemen! We’ve not come anywhere 



in this explosion question, you know. 
Seymour, what does the court of inquiry 
say? Your uncle is on it, I think.” 

Seymour smiled. “My worshipful 
uncle is like these colonials who come 
from that hilly district far up the river 
— what’s the name of it? Vermont or 
some such name.” 

“How is he like them?” demanded 
Captain Hart pleasantly. 

“He doesn’t talk,” Seymour chuckled. 
“Mum as an Iroquois, upon my word! 
The court is still sitting, moreover.” 

“That’s an idea ! ” some one exclaimed 
hastily. “These red Indians are like 
snakes in the water, I hear. Perhaps 
one of ’em swam out to the brig and set 
off a mine under her counter. It could 
be done, you know.” 

“Aye; and with the help of an ‘if’ 
you could put London into a bottle,” 
scoffed Major Severance. Amid cover 
of talk, he leaned over to the ear of 
Seymour. “I say, old chap ! You rather 
said the wrong thing, you know — about 
Vermont and so forth. That fellow at 
the other table, Bushnell, is front those 
parts.” 

“Oh! Damned thoughtless of me,” 
said Seymour with prompt contrition. 
He rose and went over to the side-table. 
Bushnell lifted his head with silent in- 
quiry. The officer made an impulsive 
apology, and Bushnell smiled a little. 

“I didn’t hear the remark, sir. A bit 
deaf.” 

Then he went on with his writing. 
Seymour, a trifle angered by this brusque 
and laconic treatment of his effort, re- 
turned to his seat, muttering something 
about an unsociable ass. 

Captain Hart, whose eyes appeared to 
be everywhere, had not missed all this. 
When Bushnell looked up again, he en- 
countered the gaze of the Britisher, and 
found it rather amused ; he frowned, 
and looked down again at his writing. 

"DERHAPS, ” said Captain Hart softly, 
.[“you gentlemen might be interested 
in a very curious thing I saw a couple of 
years ago — just before the war started. 
Not that it has anything to do with 
chimneys, except to illustrate the great 
ingenuity of some of our colonials.” 

He said this, because the talk had in- 
deed fallen upon the construction of the 
chimneys, here in New York and else- 
where, which to an English notion were 
excellently well built and with marvel- 
ous drawing powers. And knowing prac- 
tically nothing about such construction, 


ARMS AND MEN 


43 


the assembled officers talked about the 
matter very wisely. 

“By all means,” was the unanimous 
assent. Even Bushnell glanced up 
sharply, and as Hart actually smiled at 
him in mischievous sort, a glint of anger 
came into his gaze. 

“I was exploring one of the mountain 
lakes, back in the hills, with gun and 
rod,” said Hart, getting easily settled 
with a fresh pipe and refilled glass. “It 
was a very good-sized lake, rather deep, 
with no settlement close by. The singu- 
lar thing about it was that, anchored out 
in the very middle, was an empty barge.” 

T HE anger in Bushnell’s features 
deepened ; but he leaned again to his 
writing. 

“A barge 1” exclaimed some one. “But 
my dear chap, you just said no settle- 
ment was close by ! How, then, a barge ?” 

“I don’t mean an English barge,” ex- 
plained Hart with a smile. “We apply 
the term not to a many-oared boat of 
large size, but to a large flat-bottomed 
scow or skiff.” 

“Even so,” Seymour demanded, “how 
could it have come there?” 

“Exactly what puzzled me at the time,” 
Hart responded. “However, I did find 
a trace — that is, a wagon-track — which 
showed the barge must have been brought 
here on wheels, with oxen. What on 
earth it could be doing out in the middle 
of the lake, with nobody in it, was the 
question. I determined to find out.” 

He puffed his pipe alight. 

“By swimming out to it?” came the 
laughing query. 

“No; by sitting down and watching 
it. However, I was tired, and dropped 
off into a doze. I wakened suddenly, 
and you may imagine my astonishment 
to find a second boat in sight ! ” 

“Eh? I say, is this some kind of a 
nursery tale, Hart?” 

“Wait and see. I say a second boat, 
because later I discovered it was just 
that. At the moment, however, I per- 
ceived only a queer object like an in- 
verted tortoise-shell with a couple of 
pipes protruding from it. As I looked 
at the thing, it slowly sank from sight. 
A ripple in the water, however, showed 
me that it was moving beneath the sur- 
face.” 

There was a simultaneous burst of 
laughter. This died away, when the 
serious and even grave demeanor of 
Captain Hart was observed. 

Seymour leaned forward uneasily. 


“Look here, Hart! ’Pon my word, 
are you in earnest?” 

“Entirely in earnest, sir,” Hart said. 
“I am telling you something which I 
saw with my own eyes; and I purpose 
to give you the explanation of it, also. 
I assure you, the explanation is even 
more singular than the thing itself.” 

He sipped his port, and resumed his 
churchwarden pipe. 

“This second boat was entirely lost to 
sight for perhaps twenty minutes,” he 
went on calmly. His eyes flickered to 
the man in the gray frieze coat, but 
Bushnell was bent over his work. “Then, 
to my great astonishment, it suddenly 
emerged from the water near the barge, 
and moved toward where I sat, among 
the bushes on the shore. I don’t hesi- 
tate to admit that I concealed myself 
rather hastily.” 

Glances were exchanged, and frowns. 
No one was quite certain whether the 
speaker were relating an actual occur- 
rence or not. 

“Sink me! If the thing really hap- 
pened, and to me,” said some one, “I’d 
have taken to my heels! Who was in 
the second boat, Hart?” 

“It showed a convex back like a tor- 
toise-shell,” Hart said quietly. “When 
it came to the shore, this back revealed 
a port or sort of window at one end, 
which opened to let out a man. The odd 
sort of boat, not unlike an egg in its 
entire shape, was just large enough to 
contain this man and his apparatus. 

“He clambered out of his queer craft 
and pulled it up on the shore, then sat 
himself down not twenty feet from me 
and pulled out a watch, and looked at 
the barge. ‘Timed for fifteen minutes,’ 
I heard him mutter. ‘Then we shall 
see ! The one works perfectly, but does 
the other work?’ As you may imagine, 
I did not show myself.” 

“What sort of man was he?” queried 
some one eagerly. 

"Y V 7 ELL,” — Captain Hart sent a reflec- 

Wf tive glance at the scribbling Bush- 
nell, — “I did not see or observe his face, 
to be quite honest; I was excited. Quite 
an ordinary fellow, dressed like any colo- 
nial. Not an Indian, certainly. We 
waited in this fashion for what must 
have been a full fifteen minutes; it 
seemed much longer to me. Suddenly I 
heard a roar. There was an explosion 
beneath the barge, which was blown into 
fragments. The man on the shore ex- 
hibited indications of great delight; 


44 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 



“What happened was damned mysterious. Without the least warning, there was a 


then he pulled his queer boat higher on 
the shore and took his departure.” 

Hart paused again. But by now his 
auditors were becoming convinced that 
he was recounting an actual happening, 
and their interest had quickened. 

“Why, damme and sink me!” cried 
an officer. “He doesn’t mean the Warrior 
was blown up in that manner?” 

“Pray do not interrupt, sir,” exclaimed 
Seymour, and turned to Hart with his 
face alight. “Continue, sir, I pray you 1 
This story interests me vastly.” 

C APTAIN HART inclined his head. 

“Thank you, sir. Finding myself 
alone, and realizing that this strange 
boat must hold the secret of what I had 
witnessed, I made bold to examine it. 
And it proved to be a boat which could 
actually travel beneath the water. There 
could be no doubt, indeed, that I had 
watched the man take his boat beneath 
the barge, affix the powder charge, light 
the time fuse — and then retire.” 

There were uneasy glances. 

“Why, sir,” sputtered somebody, “the 
thing is impossible ! Rankly impossible ! 
Mind, sir, I do not cast aspersions upon 
your story ; I merely affirm that it’s im- 
possible for any boat to travel beneath 
the water.” 


“So I thought,” Captain Hart re- 
joined, “until I had examined the craft 
in some detail. But perhaps I bore you 
gentlemen with this story?” 

“By God, no!” swore Seymour eagerly. 
“Let us have it, sirl It begins to ex- 
plain a good deal to me. A shell, you 
say? Did the man row it himself?” 

Captain Hart puffed his churchwarden 
alight. 

“Aye, sir; it was most ingenious. The 
vessel was of wood, with a rudder. An 
oar like a screw passed through the top, 
by which it might be sunk or raised; 
another oar, its spindle passing through 
the after end, propelled the craft. To 
submerge, valves were opened to let in 
water, which was discharged by hand 
pumps when the operator wished to rise. 
Also, a heavy weight was carried, which 
assisted in sinking the boat, and when 
released, helped it to rise.” 

“But air, Captain Hart — air I ” Sey- 
mour exclaimed. “The operator must 
have air ! ” 

“Apparently there was enough for his 
purpose within the shell,” said Hart. 
“I could arrive at this conclusion only 
by calculation.” 

“How, enclosed within such a shell,” 
asked some one, “could he have attached 
any powder charge to the barge?” 


ARMS AND MEN 45 



heavy explosion by the forward counter.” 


“Exactly my thought, sir,” said Hart 
affably. “I discovered a wood screw at 
the forward end of the craft; it could be 
worked from within. I presume that this 
screw served the purpose of attaching 
the charge. This is only supposition, 
you understand.” 

“But you mistake my question — what 
of the air?” Seymour reiterated. “En- 
closed air, sir, grows foul. This is well 
known.” 

“Exactly,” replied Hart. “I men- 
tioned two pipes protruding from the 
hull, did I not? These, I discovered, 
were air pipes which opened automati- 
cally upon the boat reaching the sur- 
face — one discharging foul air, the other 
taking in fresh.” 

Inquiries were at an end. Hart’s audi- 
tors stared at him, fumbled for ques- 
tions, found none. 

“Egad, what an idea ! ” cried Seymour, 
kindling to the thought. “A man in 
such a boat could bring it beneath a 
warship, attach his charge, light a time- 
fuse, and then be on his way 1 ” 

“If the time-fuse functioned properly.” 
The gaze of Captain Hart lifted for a 
brief instant to meet that of Bushnell, 
the man in gray frieze. “If it did not 
work, the boat would be blown to bits 
with its occupant.” 


There was a sudden volley of oaths 
from the Headquarters officer. 

“Captain Hart ! You do not infer that 
such a boat was used to destroy the 
Warrior? Why — damme, sir! There 

was wreckage about which certainly did 

not come from the brig herself! Do 

you know of this?” 

Hart’s brows lifted in surprise. 

“Assuredly not. My dear sir, I mere- 
ly recount a very strange happening 
which took place a couple of years ago, 
far from here in the hills! It certainly 
could have nothing to do with the loss 
of this ship.” 

“I’m not so sure,” said Seymour. “By 
the Lord Harry, I’m not so sure! Tell 
me, Captain Hart — what became of this 
boat, this man? You must have gone 
back to the same spot?” 

“I did,” contessed Hart. “Curiosity 
drew me back a fortnight later. There 
was no sign of any boat. The lake was 
absolutely empty. I could learn nothing 
of it from anyone in the neighborhood. 
It remained a mystery — one of those 
strange things which we encounter in 
life, and for which we find no explana- 
tion. As such, I have told the story.” 

“And demned interesting, sir, demned 
interesting!” Seymour said thought- 
fully. 

So said the others, all of them. Cap- 
tain Hart was plied with questions, but 
could tell nothing not already laid bare. 

The story was so strange, so fascinat- 
ing, so full of implied things, that be- 
side it other talk paled and waned. 
Watches were produced; the assembly 
of officers broke up. Cloaks were donned, 
the waiters summoned, the score settled. 
By twos and threes the company broke 
up. 

Remained none, at last, save Captain 
Hart. He buckled his military cloak 
about his neck, and then approached the 
man in gray frieze, who still sat scrib- 
bling at a side table. 

B USHNELL looked up, his brows 
drawn down, but without anger. 
“Had your fun with me, eh, Brother 
Ezra?” he said. 

“Shadrach!” The other gripped his 
hand eagerly. “I could not resist; I 
was so delighted to find you alive, that 
I yielded to impulse. Look here! I 
drew this from the water, down the river 
from the explosion.” And he took a 
fragment of wood from under his cloak. 
“I knew instantly what it was — examine 
it closely, and you’ll see for yourself. 


ARMS AND MEN 


You might like to keep it. Are you 
safe? Can I be of service to you?” 

“Aye, brother Ezra,” the other re- 
joined. “Don’t talk so much.” 

“But you must need money, or help — ” 

“They’ll hang you yet, brother Ezra,” 
said Bushnell, “when they find who you 
really are.” 

“I’m sending out a report tonight to 
General Washington,” Hart stated, in 
a low voice. “Shall I mention you?” 

“No,” said Bushnell, gathering up his 
papers. He rose and put out his hand. 
“Good luck.” 

“Same to you, brother Shadrach. If 
there’s any earthly thing I can do for 
you — ” 

“Aye,” said Bushnell, and turned for 
a last word. “Talk less.” 

And with this, he departed. . . . 

So ended all the letters and reports, 
the whole account of that conversation in 
the ordinary room of Fraunces’ Tavern. 
I had finished with everything, except 
the bit of wood from which the label or 
ticket had been lost. I took this up, 
examining it curiously, wondering if 
there were any proof of the singular 
story which had just come to me. 

And as I wondered, my fingers struck 
an uneven surface in the wood. Rude 
carving was there; two letters, deeply 
hacked out as though with the point of a 
knife, mellowed by time: “E. B.” 

E. B. — why, they stood for Ezra Bush- 
nell ! Yet it was Shadrach who had 
worn the gray frieze; it was Ezra who 
had worn the British uniform and the 
name of Captain Hart ! And yet, again, 
it was Shadrach who had been so nearly 
killed in the explosion which must have 
torn the first submarine to pieces. 

Ezra, then, was the inventor! His 
whole story, that evening, had been a 
first-class lie, a Yankee fabrication from 
start to finish! And the fragment of 
wood which he had picked up, which he 
had given to his brother Shadrach as a 
souvenir — this same fragment of wood lay 
here, under my hand. There was the 
full story told in this tavern conversa- 
tion, told to its fitting end, yet unsuspect- 
ed by any of the auditors — the story of 
a spy, and of the first submarine boat in 
history. 

“Talk less,” said Shadrach Bushnell of 
Vermont. And only after a hundred and 
sixty years has his story been told. 

The first military use of an airship (in the 
Napoleonic wars) will be the theme of the 
next story in this brilliant series — in our 
forthcoming November issue. 



T HE teletype message read : 

“Constable at Deerville reports man 
and woman walking in highway 
struck by hit-and-run driver who round- 
ed curve at excessive speed. Car is 1936 
Speedway four-door sedan. Black with 
orange trim. Steel wheels. Right front 
fender and bumper dented. Registration 
number not obtained. Driver believed 
heading south.” 

Patrols of the Black Horse Troop, 
New York State Police, stationed north, 
east and west of Deerville answered the 
call almost at once. But there was no 
response from the Plazy substation, lo- 
cated south of Deerville. 

“Garumph,” growled Captain Charles 
Field, commanding officer, who was pac- 
ing the floor in the barracks. “Who is 
stationed at Plazy?” 

Max Payton, the top sergeant, made a 
pretense of consulting the duty sheet, and 
reported : 

“Sergeant Henry Linton, sir.” 

Captain Field’s grunt spoke volumes. 
Lieutenant Edward David, better 
known as Tiny, whose great form was 
draped over the teletype machine, at- 
tempted to pour oil on the troubled wa- 
ters: 

“Maybe Linton is out on the road,” 
he explained in his customary drawl, 
“and his operator is waiting to get in 
touch with him before acknowledging 
receipt of the message.” 

This time Captain Field’s grunt was 
even more expressive: 


Like That! 


Tiny David gets into 
a tight jam — but is 
quick to recognize 
Lady Luck when he 
meets her. 


“Maybe I am the fifth quintuplet. Tell 
that operator to come to life.” 

The teletype keys clicked out a point* 
ed message to the Plazy sub-station, and 
the answer was prompt : 

“Waiting to establish contact with pa- 
trol before acknowledging receipt of Mes- 
sage 146. Lieutenant James Crosby and 
Sergeant Linton making inspection trip 
of territory. Will advise soon as con- 
tact established.” 

“Inspection trip!” Captain Field 
made a knife of each word. “Bums’ re- 
union ! Get hold of the Hatburgh patrol, 
and have them move north. And let me 
know when you hear from Crosby and 
Linton.” 

Captain Field departed for his private 
office. 

“Do you think he is?” asked Sergeant 
Payton. 

“Do I think he is what?” demanded 
Lieutenant David. 

“The fifth quintuplet.” 

Tiny David gave this problem careful 
consideration. 

“If he is, they will have to keep him 
out of the group pictures, or they won’t 
have any advertising value. His face 
would curdle milk.” The big man picked 
up his hat. “If he asks for me, tell him 
I have gone to Plazy.” 

Sergeant Payton nodded. “Now,” he 
declared, “it will be a real reunion.” 

M EANWHILE, Lieutenant Crosby 
and Sergeant Linton, seated on the 
counter of a general store north of 
Plazy, were indulging in desultory conver- 
sation with the aged proprietor, all un- 
aware that the teletype carried many and 
unflattering references to themselves. 

“Where is the light of my life, Pop?” 
asked Crosby, jerking his head toward 
an empty cashier’s cage. 

“She quit,” declared the proprietor. 
“Got to get myself another girl.” 

“That should be easy for a Romeo like 
you,” Linton contributed. 



47 


“It is, and it aint,” the storekeeper 
asserted. “The good-looking ones aint 
never smart. And the smart ones know 
too much to work here.” 

Mr. Crosby tvarmed to the task at 
hand. 

“You are in a tough spot, Pop. If you 
ask me — ” 

The ringing of the telephone bell 
robbed Mr. Crosby of his audience, and 
the storekeeper, after a few words, 
turned around with a smile : 

“Guess either one of you will do. Said 
I was to sweep off the counter, and brush 
one of the loafers in the direction of the 
phone.” 

Mr. Linton accepted the receiver re- 
luctantly, and found himself in com- 
munication with a teletype clerk, who 
had sought him over most of the terri- 
tory. The clerk’s words were few and 
to the point. Mr. Linton was a changed 
man as he relayed the message to his 
partner and even Mr. Crosby wilted vis- 
ibly. They left the store at a dogtrot 
and jumped into the troop car. Few 
words were wasted, and soon they 
reached the main highway leading from 
Deerville and went to work. There was 
a steady flow of traffic. From it they 
culled all cars even remotely answering 
the description, halted them and ques- 
tioned the occupants. All were able to 
give satisfactory accounts of themselves. 






48 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


“Gness either one of you will do— said 
I was to brush one of the loafers In the 
direction of the phone.” 



More than an hour had passed when 
Linton, working a good three hundred 
feet ahead of the troop car, stiffened to 
attention. A car was approaching from 
the direction of Deerville. Even at a 
distance the distinctive Speedway radia- 
tor was recognizable. 

Linton waved to Crosby, who moved 
close to the troop car. 

The Speedway roared on toward the 
crossroads. Linton, standing in the cen- 
ter of the road, checked off the distin- 
guishing marks: 

“Black. . . . Four-door sedan. . . . 1936 
model. . . . Orange trim. . . . Right front 
fender and bumper bent.” 

Linton raised his arm ; his cry sound- 
ed above the straining motor: 

“Halt! State Police!” 

The driver answered the command 
with an additional burst of speed. Di- 
rectly in front of the oncoming car, bal- 
anced on his toes, stood Linton. 

“Halt! Pull it over!” 

Just as the car was upon him, the 
trooper leaped for the safety of the 
ditch. He made it, pulled himself to his 
feet and ran swiftly toward the troop 
car. 

Crosby stood in the road near the 
troop car, which was headed in the di- 


rection the Speedway was moving. The 
engine of the troop car was running. 

“Halt ! ” cried Crosby. 

The car roared on. Carefully Crosby 
checked the distinguishing marks, his 
glance lingering on the bent fender and 
bumper. His lips tightened. 

“That’s good enough!” he muttered. 

He drew his gun, and fired three times. 
He heard the bullets crash through the 
radiator of the speeding car, noted with 
satisfaction the dark spots that denoted 
leaking water, and then jumped. Linton 
was at the wheel of the troop car when 
Crosby leaped in beside him. 

The chase was short. Steam poured 
from the radiator of the Speedway as 
they pulled alongside. The driver re- 
mained at the wheel as the two troopers 
approached. 

“Ever hear of James Makorn?” he de- 
manded, naming a well-known political 
boss who was a real power in the land. 


JUST LIKE THAT! 


49 



Crosby took charge: “Makorn? No, 
don’t prompt me; maybe I can get it 
myself.” A long pause. “I give up. 
Sorry — but I seldom read the crime 
news.” 

There was a sneer on the face of the 
driver. 

“All right, wise guy. Colonel Makorn 
happens to be the power behind the 
throne around here, and has a lot of jobs 
In his pocket.” 

Sergeant Linton felt that he had been 
silent too long. 

“And Hitler has a good job in Ger- 
many,” he added. 

Crosby planted a heavy foot on the 
running-board of the Speedway. 

“For the sake of argument, we admit 
there is an important man named Ma- 
korn, who controls a lot of political ap- 
pointments. What does that make you ?” 


The driver extended one hand, two fin- 
gers of which were pressed tight to- 
gether. 

“Makorn and me,” he declared, “are 
just like that." 

Mr. Crosby permitted himself the lux- 
ury of a grin. 

“As I read the cards,” he said, “some- 
thing is about to come between you, 
casting a blight on a beautiful friend- 
ship.” 

“What?” 

“The jailhouse.” 

“What for?” 

Mr. Crosby waved a hand. “This and 
that. Little hit-and-run, with a spot of 
mayhem on the side.” 

“Why, you misbeguided — ” 

“All right! All right! All right!” 

T HE interruption, delivered in dulcet 
tones mimicking the voice of the di- 
rector of an amateur radio program, 
came from Tiny David, who was at the 
wheel of a coupe that drew up beside the 
damaged Speedway. “What have we 
here?” 

Mr. Crosby told him. The driver, at- 
tempting to take part in the telling, was 
silenced by the not too gentle hand of 
Mr. Linton. 

“Hum,” was the profound comment of 
Lieutenant David, when the recital was 
ended. 

“Hum, yourself!” retorted Mr. Cros- 
by. “All set to pass on a good bawling 
out from the skipper, weren’t you?” A 
look of triumph crossed his face. “Just 
because Linny and I put in our time out 
on the road, where things are happening, 
instead of warming a chair beside a tele- 
type machine.” Mr. Crosby removed an 
imaginary spot of dust from the skirt of 
his coat. “Care to trail along while we 
book this baby?” 

“Nope.” Mr. David was very em- 
phatic. “Joe Farrell and I are good 
friends. This is going to make him 
right sore.” 

Mr. Crosby attempted to cover grow- 
ing misgivings by adopting a formal 
manner. 

“Just what does Sergeant Farrell have 
to do with this?” 

Mr. David made a gesture of apology. 
“Nothing much,” he admitted depreca- 
torily. “Maybe he won’t object to hav- 
ing a spare.” 

“What does ‘spare’ mean ?” The ques- 
tion came from Mr. Linton. 

“Well, Joe picked up a guy on this 
job. Found him the other side of Plazy. 


50 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


Must have been an hour ago.” Mr. 
David devoted his entire attention to 
adjusting the curves of his body to the 
fender of the Speedway. 

“Go on,” commanded Mr. Crosby, des- 
peration in his voice. 

“The guy Joe picked up confessed. 
They were reducing it to writing when I 
left. I mushed along to tell you to call 
the barracks before the old man reduces 
you to the ranks of the unemployed.” 

Mr. Crosby suppressed a groan. 

Mr. David examined the bullet-holes 
in the radiator. 

“This sort of complicates matters. I 
wouldn’t be in any hurry about calling 
in. No use running to catch up with an 
accident.” 

T HE driver of the Speedway found his 
voice : 

“Now you two apes are going to listen 
to me. The criminal charge against you 
is assault. There will be a civil suit to 
recover for damages to this car. And 
wait until Colonel Makorn turns on the 
heat.” 

Tiny David roused himself at the 
name. Apparently it was a great effort, 
but he managed to clear the fender and 
stand at a point where he could get a 
view of the interior of the car. 

“Colonel Makorn? You didn’t tell 
me he was in the car. Where is he? 
Under the seat?” 

Linton laughed hollowly, then dis- 
played two fingers pressed tightly to- 
gether. 

“This guy and Colonel Makorn are 
just like that. We have this guy’s word 
for it.” 

Mr. Crosby had reached a decision. 
Ignoring the other parties concerned, he 
addressed the driver : 

“Maybe we did pull a boner, but you 
are a long way from being in the clear. 
You were hitting seventy. That’s reck- 
less driving, and then some. You ig- 
nored a command to halt. There is a 
law covering that. You tried to run us 
down. You might get a medal for that, 
and you might not — it depends on the 
jury.” 

Mr. Crosby attempted what was in- 
tended to be an amiable smile. 

“Between us, we probably will be able 
to keep several lawyers in a state of 
luxury to which they are not accus- 
tomed.” The wave of an arm was de- 
signed to register generosity. “The new 
radiator is on me. Taking all that into 
consideration, it might pay both of us 


to forget and forgive. What do you 
say?” 

What the driver had to say remained 
a mystery, because at that moment Tiny 
David went into action : 

“Registration-card and driver’s li- 
cense,” he ordered. 

The driver produced them, and the 
troopers learned he was one Jose Mokus, 
who lived in a downstate city. 

Then Tiny David turned to Crosby: 

“Arraign Mr. Importance on charges 
of reckless driving and attempted assault 
on officers. Make two counts of the as- 
sault charge, one on yourself and one on 
Linton. If this guy gets bail, hold him 
on an open charge, pending investiga- 
tion.” 

“Investigation for what?” demanded 
the driver. “I’d like to know.” 

“That’s natural,” Tiny David admit- 
ted. He turned to Crosby, who showed 
signs of hesitation. “Get started, Jim. 
Linny and I will tow this wreck to a 
garage.” 

“Wait until Makorn gets through with 
you!” stormed the driver. 

Tiny David’s sigh was deep and pro- 
found. 

“He will have to wait his turn. A 
couple of other guys will get first crack 
at me.” 

When they were alone, and engaged in 
putting a towline on the sedan, Mr. Lin- 
ton asked a question: 

“What have you got up your sleeve, 
Tiny?” 

Tiny David jammed a knot tight. 

“The arm of a jackass, Linny.” 

“Anything else?” asked Mr. Linton, 
with a slight display of hope. 

“Nary a thing.” 

“In that case,” declared Mr. Linton, 
“we might as well plan everything now. 
Simple services at the house, and just a 
short prayer at the grave.” 

“Flowers?” asked Tiny David. 

“No, that would mean another hack. 
We want to keep this as reasonable as 
possible.” 

M ESSRS. David and Linton were still 
engaged in their towing job when 
Mr. Crosby escorted a protesting Mr. 
Mokus into the general store, where the 
proprietor, who doubled as a justice of 
the peace, greeted the trooper with a 
cackle of pleasure, which died abruptly 
when he saw the look on Crosby’s face. 
“What you got?” the old man asked. 
“Trouble,” said Crosby, with heartfelt 
sincerity. 


JUST LIKE THAT! 


51 


Then, with the air of a man tending a 
dying friend, he proceeded to arraign his 
prisoner. 

“Not guilty,” snapped Mr. Mokus. 
“And while we are on the subject — ” 

Scattered among quite a bit of extrav- 
agant expression was the request for a 
warrant accusing Crosby and Linton of 
assault. Coupled with this was the de- 
mand that he, Mr. Mokus, be allowed to 
communicate with Colonel Makorn by 
telephone at once. 

The justice scratched his head in per- 
plexity. 

“There is the phone over yonder. You 
can use it if you have the money to feed 
it.” 

Mr. Mokus asked for, and received, 
change for a twenty-dollar bill. They 
watched him move toward the telephone, 
and place a call for Colonel Makorn. 

The justice spoke in a low tone to 
the trooper: 

“Seems like you waded in where it was 
a mite over your head. My advice is 
free, and it probably is worth just about 
what you pay for it. If it was me, I 
would get the district attorney here 
quick as you can.” 

Crosby shook his head gloomily. 

“Guess you are right, Pop. I might 
as well be hanged in a legal manner.” 

They stood by, listening to one end 
of a spirited conversation, and soon Mr. 
Mokus returned, radiating triumph. 

“Colonel Makorn is going to call your 
barracks, and also the district attorney. 


“Halt!” cried Crosby. The car 
roared on. He drew his ppm 
and fired — then jumped. 


Then he is coming right on by airplane. 
And when he gets here — ” 

“Until he gets here,” interrupted Mr. 
Crosby, who was nearing his limit, “you 
keep that tongue of yours quiet, or I'll 
pin your big mouth shut with a clothes- 
pin.” 

“You’ll get nothing by threatening me.” 

“Probably not,” Mr. Crosby admitted. 
“But it eases my feelings. And now I’ll 
ease them some more by calling the dis- 
trict attorney.” 

But even that doubtful pleasure was 
denied him, at least for the moment, for 
just then the telephone bell shrilly 
sounded its summons. 

The justice answered the call. 

“It’s for you,” he told Crosby. 

Mr. Crosby accepted the receiver with 
the manner of a condemned man seating 
himself in the electric chair. The stri- 
dent voice of the trooper tending the 
teletype machine in. the substation car- 
ried to him : 

“Why don’t you birds rent space in 
that store by the week?” 

Conclusive proof that Mr. Crosby’s 
morale was at the lowest possible ebb 
was forthcoming in the fact that he be- 
came official : 



52 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 



“Makorn and me,” the driver de- 
clared. "are just like that!” 

“This is Lieutenant Crosby speaking.” 

“My error,” came the unruffled re- 
sponse. “I thought it was Haile Selassie. 
All right, Lieutenant. The old man 
wants words with you, and he wants 
them bad. He also craves conversation 
with Tiny and Linny. He said some- 
thing about it being time for a bums’ 
convention to adjourn, and for the ac- 
credited delegates to get to work.” 

Mr. Crosby did what he would have 
described as quick thinking. Obviously, 
Captain Field was on the trail. The ref- 
erence to the “bums’ convention,” how- 
ever, indicated that Colonel Makorn was 
yet to be heard from. The future of- 
fered scant hope, but anything was pref- 
erable to immediate disaster. 

His official manner vanished, and his 
voice became pleasing with a note of 
pleading in it: 

“Pete, let’s pretend you called up here 
and couldn’t locate me.” 

There was a brief silence on the other 
end of the wire. 

“All right,” was the verdict. “No ac- 
counting for tastes. I would sooner have 
it happen over the telephone than in 
person.” 

“And I would sooner have it happen to 
you than to me,” said Mr. Crosby pleas- 
antly. “But we can’t have everything 
we want. So hang up, and let me call 
the individual whom we jokingly call the 
district attorney.” 

A T about the time Crosby was connect- 
. ed with the county official, Messrs. 
David and Linton, piloting a mournful 
procession consisting of the damaged 


Speedway and the tow-car, came to a halt 
along the road by unspoken but mutual 
assent. 

They quit their posts behind the two 
steering-wheels and took refuge beneath 
a tree. Neither man realized the fact, 
but a subconscious desire to postpone the 
inevitable motivated them. 

“Do you think he does know Colonel 
Makorn?” asked Linton. 

“Not a doubt of it.” 

“What does that make us ?” 

“The late deceased.” 

A belated thought struck Mr. Linton : 

“Say, why did you cut yourself a piece 
of this cake? You saw it was soggy be- 
fore you picked up the knife.” 

Mr. David pondered his reply. When 
he spoke, his voice was gruff : 

“Hated to see Jim make a complete ass 
of himself. That ratty guy would have 
yessed him on the proposition, walked 
away clean, and then carried his woes to 
the dear Colonel — whose title is phony, 
but whose power is real, I suppose. This 
way we at least have part of the turkey.” 

“Yeah,” Mr. Linton agreed; “but 
which part?” 

Mr. David shrugged his huge shoul- 
ders, then swung a playful punch at his 
companion. 

“After all,” he said, “we’ll go out to- 
gether.” The gruff note returned to his 
voice. “Wouldn’t want to be in the out- 
fit without you and Jim.” 

Mr. Linton choked back his reply be- 
cause he thought it sounded sentimental. 
He gazed straight ahead. 

“Now,” he declared, “is the time for 
the fleet to steam into the harbor and 
relieve the besieged town.” He glanced 
up and down the deserted road. “You 


JUST LIKE THAT! 53 


haven’t got a battleship in your pocket, 
have you ?” 

“Not even a treaty cruiser. All we 
can do is pad the fall.” 

“How?” 

“For one thing, we can get this bus to 
a garage and have a new radiator stuck 
on it. That will rob the Colonel’s boy 
friend of his choicest exhibit. All he 
will have left will be his injured feelings 
— if any.” 

Mr. Linton showed signs of interest. 
“That,” he declared, “is a thought. 
Let’s roll.” 

W HILE they were rolling Captain 
Field held a telephone conversation 
with Colonel Makorn. The Colonel 
angrily recited the facts in the case at 
hand. He suggested various remedies. 
He wound up with a blunt demand that 
Captain Field state his course of action. 
Captain Field was polite but firm. 
“When I hear both sides of the story, 
I’ll decide what to do.” 

The garage force trod warily as he 
backed out his car. . . . 

Mr. Crosby, having derived small com- 
fort from his telephone conversation with 
the district attorney, tried to ease his 
tension by giving the increasingly confi- 
dent Mr. Mokus a verbal workout. 

“How did you put that dent in the 
bumper and fender of your car?” the 
trooper asked. 

Mr. Mokus first devoted his attention 
to lighting a cigarette, and then coun- 
tered : 

“I can refuse to talk until my lawyer 
gets here. Colonel Makorn. will appear 
for me.” He shrugged his shoulders. 
“But I don’t mind telling you that I 
smacked a tree.” 

“Where is the tree?” 

“At the side of the road, about three 
miles north of Wolfton.” 

“When did it happen ?” 

“This morning.” 

“Wolfton is right near the border. 
Were you coming from Canada?” 

“I — no, I wasn’t.” 

Mr. Crosby, fumbling about for some 
straw to clutch, saw what he thought 
might provide an opening. 

“All right. We will soon find out.” 

He picked up the telephone and called 
the Customs and Immigration men sta- 
tioned at that point. Neither the Speed- 
way nor Mr. Mokus appeared on their 
records. 

Lieutenant Crosby gave vent to a 
rather unconvincing, “That’s fine,” which 


was for the benefit of Mr. Mokus, and re- 
turned to his task. 

“The Customs men say they didn’t 
clear you, but that your car was seen in 
Canada this morning.” 

If this assertion caused Mr. Mokus 
any uneasiness, he hid it effectually be- 
neath a show of righteous indignation: 

“The old frame-up, eh? Me, I haven’t 
been to Canada for a month. How can I 
help what those monkeys think they 
seen? I can prove where I was, and I’ll 
do it at the right time. The right time 
will be when Colonel Makorn gets here. 
Until then, I am not talking. See?” 

“What made you hit the tree?” de- 
manded Mr. Crosby. 

“It’s a nice day,” countered Mr. Mo- 
kus. 

Mr. Crosby didn’t think it was, but all 
things considered, he didn’t see anything 
he could do about it. 

T HE head mechanic at the Speedway 
agency in Plazy showed interest when 
Messrs. David and Linton towed in the 
exhibit. 

“Where was the battle?” he asked. 
“Got a radiator for this model?” asked 
Mr. David. 

“Yep.” 

“Put it on. How long will it take 
you?” 

“About an hour — for the radiator.” 
“What do you mean?” 

The mechanic grinned. He knew these 
two of old, and many times had traded 
wise-cracks with them. 

“What goes in, must come out — some- 
where. Lead is all right in gasoline, in 
small amounts ; but when you start 
throwing it against motors, something is 
likely to happen. Better take a look be- 
fore we plan on an hour. That is, if you 
planned on driving this away. Of course, 
if you are willing to go on towing — ” 
“Skip the comedy, commanded Mr. 
Linton. 

The mechanic lifted the hood, put an 
electric light in position, and began a 
careful inspection. Messrs, David and 
Linton, leaning over his shoulders, ex- 
perienced their first pleasure for some 
hours when they saw the motor appar- 
ently was unharmed. 

“That’s funny,” said the mechanic, 
who was inspecting a black cylindrical 
object attached to one side of the motor. 
“This looks like the oil filter — ” 

“You can’t always go by looks,” inter- 
rupted Tiny David, whose relief had re- 
stored him to a state close to normal, and 


54 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


whose interest in the Speedway, aside 
from damage done by bullets, was only 
academic. “Take Linton. He looks like 
a trooper. And you look like a me- 
chanic.” 

Professional interest caused the me- 
chanic to ignore the thrust. His fingers 
were exploring in the space between the 
object and the motor. 

“Bullet clipped a piece right out pf the 
side of this. But it isn’t leaking oil. And 
there is no oil around the base of the 
motor. And there — ” 

Tiny David came to life with a quick 
jerk that belied his former appearance of 
laziness. A twist of his huge shoulders 
brushed the mechanic aside. One of his 
heavy, stubby hands darted toward the 
supposed oil filter and groped for the 
bullet-hole. A gleeful smile of anticipa- 
tion lighted up his broad face. 

“Maybe you are a mechanic. Maybe 
Linton is a trooper.” A finger thrust into 
the hole encountered resistance. “And 
there is a god that takes care of fools, 
cops, and other incompetents!” he said 
joyfully. “ — Linny, look here!” 

C APTAIN FIELD, detained by a 
blow-out, an irate citizen who halted 
him along the road, and a visit to the sub- 
station where the confession of the 
hit-and-run driver had been obtained, ar- 
rived at the store just ten minutes before 
the Colonel. 

That ten minutes was devoted to a 
brief resum£ of the past misdeeds of 
Messrs. David, Crosby and Linton. The 
commanding officer had just reached the 
current year when Colonel Makorn, ac- 
companied by a man who obviously was 
an airplane pilot, entered. 

Mr. Mokus and the Colonel shook 
hands warmly, and then went into execu- 
tive session at the far end of the store. 
Captain Field took advantage of the lull 
to ask: 

“Where are David and Linton?” 

“At the garage, sir.” 

“All right. Now what in blazes is this 
all about?” 

Mr. Crosby’s explanation was cut short 
by the arrival of the district attorney. 
Mr. Crosby, with a sigh, began again, 
only to be interrupted by the Colonel, 
who advanced upon the group with fire 
in his eyes, and speaking in tones that 
would carry at least a mile. 

“Don’t you birds up here respect any 
human rights and liberties? Do you cut 
loose with your guns on anybody who 
comes along, if you don’t like his face? 


Do you know that we have some laws in 
this country that govern even the actions 
of police officers? Do you know — ” 

Captain Field cleared his throat ex- 
pectantly. Privately, he knew that his 
men had made a mistake. He was not 
sufficiently acquainted with the facts to 
decide if that mistake was justified. But 
justified or not, any abuse that was 
forthcoming would be delivered by him- 
self. No outsider, be he colonel or king, 
was going to shower abuse on the men of 
the Black Horse Troop while their com- 
manding officer stood idly by. 

Captain Field was ready to go into ac- 
tion; and Crosby, whose judgment was 
faultless in matters of that sort, had de- 
cided his volume and vocabulary both 
were superior to those of the Colonel. 
But from outside the store there came 
the sound of an automobile siren, loud 
and insistent. 

Colonel Makorn ceased his tirade. The 
horn, apparently, was familiar to Mr. 
Mokus. The storekeeper deserted his 
desk, and walked to the door. The others 
followed. 

Tiny David was at the wheel of the 
Speedway, which was parked directly be- 
fore the door. Behind the Speedway, 
was a coupe driven by Mr. Linton. Mr. 
Crosby centered his attention upon Mr. 
David, hoping to find some ray of hope in 
his manner, and at the same time assur- 
ing himself that this was the finale of 
the play, and that the show was a 
tragedy. 

Mr. David climbed out of the car with 
tantalizing slowness. There was a rather 
silly, apologetic smile on his face. It van- 
ished as he sighted Captain Field, and sa- 
luted gravely. 

“What have you been doing?” de- 
manded the commanding officer. 

Tiny David sighed gently. His glance 
rested longingly on the top step, and his 
body bent a bit, but he apparently de- 
cided it would not be advisable to sit 
down just at this time. 

“Been getting a new radiator put on 
this Speedway, sir. You see, this bird 
wouldn’t stop, and Tim had to throw a 
little lead at him. Thought it would be a 
good idea to get the car in running con- 
dition again.” 

Captain Field, studying Tiny David 
through half-closed eyes, remained silent. 
He recognized familiar symptoms. 

H OPE surged through Crosby. He 
glanced at Linton; the almost im- 
perceptible nod that replied assured him 


JUST LIKE THAT! 


55 



that all was well with the closed cor- 
poration that for so many years had 
roamed the border. 

Colonel Makorn stepped forward. 

“And do you think for one minute you 
were justified in — ” 

“You are Colonel Makorn.” Tiny 
David stated the fact as though it was a 
brilliant discovery on his part. “Mr. 
Mokus spoke of you.” 

Colonel Makorn brushed this aside. 

“Er — Mr. Mokus and I are business 
acquaintances. I have appeared for him 
in several matters. I represent him now. 
But that — ” 

“Mr. Mokus,” Tiny David interrupted 
with a disarming smile, “said that you 
and he were just like that.” The troop- 
er extended a hand, two fingers of which 
were pressed close together. 

Colonel Makorn cleared his throat. He 
glanced at Mr. Mokus. Mr. Mokus, in 
turn, glanced at the Colonel. 

“Aside from our business relations, as 
lawyer and client, Mr. Mokus and I are 
bound by ties of friendship. But that is 
aside from the point. I demand an an- 
swer to my question. Do you think you 
are justified in shooting away at any- 
body who fails to stop when you order 
them to?” 

Tiny David pondered for some time be- 
fore he replied: 

“In this case, yes. The car resembled 
one that had figured in an accident in 
which two persons were seriously, per- 
haps fatally, injured.” 


Colonel Makorn snorted his disgust. 

“If I resemble a murder suspect, does 
that give you a right to kill me?” 

“Well, no,” Tiny David admitted re- 
luctantly. 

“And you had no legal right to shoot at 
that car ! ” roared the Colonel. 

Captain Field, about to add that the 
driver of the car had no legal right to 
attempt to run down two troopers, shot 
a look at Tiny David, and thought better 
of it. 

Mr. David shifted from foot to foot. 
He was a picture of woe. 

“I am no lawyer. Just a journeyman 
cop. Guess we are in wrong, all right.” 
The rather foolish smile appeared once 
more. “Only hope for us would be if we 
could prove this man really was guilty 
of something. Guess there isn’t much 
chance of that.” He turned to Mokus. 
“How did you dent the bumper and fen- 
der on that car?” 

The hope that had sustained Mr. 
Crosby for the last few minutes died sud- 
denly. He spoke in a low tone : 

“I checked that by telephone, Tiny. 
He hit a tree.” 

Tiny David shook his head with re- 
gret. 

“Then even that is out. Guess Mr. 
Mokus is in the clear, all right.” 

Colonel Makorn snorted again. 

“Certainly he is in the clear.” He 
studied the group before him : Couple of 
hick cops; in bad, aware of it, and 
floundering about; their captain either 


56 


JUST LIKE THAT! 


unwilling or unable to help them ; a light- 
weight of a district attorney, a typical 
hick. The Colonel was very confident. 

“Mr. Mokus,” the Colonel continued, 
“is absolutely in the clear. You gen- 
tlemen know who I am. I assume full 
responsibility for his actions. It is not 
necessary for you to make any checks. 
As a matter of fact, he was carrying out a 
commission for me when this regrettable 
incident took place.” 

Colonel Makorn examined the Speed- 
way. 

“I see you have had Mr. Mokus’ car 
repaired.” His manner was grave. “That, 
of course, does not relieve your legal re- 
sponsibility for your illegal acts*' His 
smile appeared. “However, I am*inclined 
to be lenient, and I believe my client will 
follow my lead.” 

G REAT relief was visible in Tiny 
. David’s face, and that emotion was 
sincerely reflected by Mr. Crosby. 

“That’s very decent, Colonel Makorn.” 
Tiny David’s voice was a drawl. “Guess 
that settles everything. Particularly as 
you say you are responsible for all Mr. 
Mokus’ actions, and that he was carrying 
out a commission for you at the time he 
was fired upon. You said that, didn’t 
you ?” 

Colonel Makorn nodded his head in a 
condescending manner. 

“I certainly did.” 

Tiny David took a quick step for- 
ward. Gone were the indecision, the 
awkwardness and the slowness. His 
voice was deep, and it rang with au- 
thority : 

“That’s just fine. Mokus, you are un- 
der arrest for the possession and trans- 
portation of cocaine. Makorn, you are 
under arrest as an accomplice. Twice 
you said you assumed full responsibility 
for Mokus’ actions, and that he was car- 
rying out a commission for you. I be- 
lieve you. I think a jury will. We will 
help them, however, by checking back 
on Mokus, and eliminating all other 
commissions.” 

Roaring denials, Colonel Makorn was 
seized by Crosby, and silenced. Linton 
grabbed Mokus. There was a short 
struggle. 

Then Tiny turned to Captain Field. 
So far, all was well ; but as he well knew, 
he and his companions were a long way 
from being out of the woods with this 
particular gentleman. Messrs. Crosby 
and Linton listened eagerly to the ex- 


planation — which, past experience taught 
them, would be a masterpiece from the 
standpoint of glossing over unpleasant 
details, yet avoiding all untruths. 

“You see, Captain,” Tiny David be- 
gan, “Jim and Linny had a tough break 
on the car. Morally they were justified. 
Legally they weren’t. Then this bird be- 
gan to brag about him and Colonel Ma- 
korn being ‘just like that’.” 

Mr. David swallowed hastily. 

“That should be enough tip-off for any- 
body.” (He failed to add that it hadn’t 
been.) “Colonel Makorn always has been 
suspected of a tie-up with the cocaine 
traffic. Tried to have a bill put through 
one year just before adjournment, that 
would have flooded the State.” Mr. 
David made no mention of the fact that 
all this had returned to his mind only a 
short time ago. 

“Then, there was the fact that this 
bird in the car was so anxious not to stop 
that he took a chance on passing two 
troopers. That should be enough tip-off 
for anybody that he had something he 
didn’t want found.” 

Again Mr. David overlooked the fact 
that he and his companions, confused by 
their mistake, had failed to make even a 
routine search of the car. 

“Didn’t take long to find it, when we 
went to work. A garage was the best 
place. Had a dummy oil filter. Filled 
with cocaine.” (No use mentioning the 
fact that only the blind path of a bullet 
had disclosed the hiding-place.) 

T INY DAVID decided all this justi- 
fied some liberties ; he seated himself 
on the top step, occupying a soft spot he 
had selected minutes ago. 

“Hooking the Colonel was a bit of 
luck.” He smiled modestly. “He walked 
right into it. Made his admission twice. 
He was feeling confident by that time.” 

Tiny David yawned. He allowed his 
head to fall back until it rested against 
the wall. His trooper’s hat was pushed 
forward, so that it shielded his eyes from 
the sun. 

Then Captain Field stood over him, his 
hands on his hips-, his eyes twinkling, and 
his lips curved in a sardonic smile. 

“Stay awake long enough to answer 
just one question,” he commanded. You 
and Lady Luck are pals, aren’t you?” 

Tiny David extended a hand, two fin- 
gers of which were pressed tight against 
each other. 

“Just like that," he answered. 


Another spirited story by Robert R. Mill will be a feature of our next issue. 




A wild weird adventure in 
France — by the able author 
of “The Pirate’s Beard” 
and “Springfield 00078596 ” 


By 

Fulton 

Grant 


Illustrated by 
Austin Briggs 


URE, I’ve told this 
story to a lot of fel- 
lows, but what they 
always say makes me 
sore. 

“Good old Matty!” 
they say. “Lucky you 
got deported from 
France. That French judge was right. 
Only a guy whose thinking is screwy 
and French, could tell a yarn like that. 
Better go American, son.” 

That’s about what they say, and it 
makes me sore. Maybe I did stay away 
too long. But if I got mixed up in this 
crazy business, it was on account of 
O’Brien, the Half-pint Duke. 

You never heard of a duke named 
O’Brien, and neither did anybody else. 
His real name is James Algernon O’Brien 
— and he’s from Telegraph Hill, South 
Boston. He stands about five feet five, 
and has a flock of degrees, a gentle, low 
voice, and an accent that is ve’y ve’y 
Hahvahd. But don’t let that fool you. 
If you take a stick of dynamite and wrap 
it up in tinsel and ribbons, you’ve got 
yourself a small package of Half-pint 
O’Brien. 

The Duke part of it is a gag. It 
started in the Marines. We used to call 


Half-pint O’Brien “the Duke,” because 
of the way he felt about aristocracy. 

He got ideas about what he referred to 
as the normal supremacy of the natural 
governing classes. He used to claim that 
there were only two kinds of people in 
this world : a class intended by nature to 
rule, and a class meant to be ruled. Nat- 
urally, O’Brien put himself in the ruling 
class. 

I met Half-pint O’Brien in the Ma- 
rines first. I met his fist padded with a 
sixteen-ounce pillow and aimed at the 
point of my jaw; and when the birdies 
stopped singing, I was stretched out on 
a cot in the Y.M. building, and there 
was the little devil standing over me 
and trying to tell me he didn’t mean to 
do it. Well, all that doesn’t matter 
now, except that we got to be buddies, 
and we went over to France together in 


I made a 
dash for 
the door, 
before the 
frog knew. 


57 


58 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 



Halt-pint O’Brien was off that seat like a steel spring. Head down, he 


the Fifth Marines and licked the Kaiser 
single-handed, to hear us tell u. When 
the Armistice was signed, we were dis- 
charged and chucked out into this mess 
called Life. 

I lost track of O’Brien in 1927, when 
I went back to France to get in on the 
big tourist racket which had sprung up. 
After a while I was able to hang up my 
own shingle, and I had a nice little tour- 
ist business of my own. But the de- 
pression came, and pretty soon my 
swanky offices were just a place to hang 
my hat in. . 

Well, one day I was sitting at my desk, 
trying to figure out how to stall off the 
landlord and how -to scrape up some cash 
to give my secretary Lulette her weekly 
insult, when she walks in, saying : 

“Monsieur, voila. Here is one chance 
to use the American genius. A monsieur 
who has the air very rich is here for 
you.” She had a calling card in her hand, 
and I grabbed it. It read: 

James Algernon O’Brien, PhD. 

Political History, Dewar College 

I gave a whoop that shocked Lulette, 
and ran to the outside offices, leaving her 
gasping at me. It was Half-pint O’Brien, 
the little Duke, all right. He was dressed 


like the Prince of Wales, and was tapping 
the floor with a rhinoceros-horn stick. 
Worst of all, he was wearing a scrubby 
little tuft of hair on his chin, and had 
two wax-pointed bristles on his lip, all 
three of which were practically vermil- 
ion in color. 

“By Jove!” he yelled at me. “It 
is Matty Burke 1” And the next minute 
we were pounding each other on the 
back and practically necking. 

O’Brien told me all about himself. 
He had been sent over by his college as 
an exchange professor at the Sorbonne, 
or some such gag. He had seen one of 
my prospectuses (he called them “pros- 
pecti,” and it must have been over a year 
old, since I hadn’t had any money to 
get anything printed for at least a year) 
and he had looked me up as soon as he 
could. 

It was pretty swell, I thought, to find 
a real old-fashioned, disinterested friend- 
ship like that, and I was pleased. But 
all of a sudden he pulls this one on me : 

“Matty,” he says, “maybe you can do 
me a favor. Send the little girl away, 
will you? I want to talk — privately.” 

I told Lulette to run along home, since 
it was already five o’clock, and then 
O’Brien slipped me this: 



HALF-PINT GOES NOBLE 


59 



Jumped, and he butted Cressol hard. 


“Matty,” he said, “I’m in a spot. I 
want something very important delivered 
to another city. I can’t trust anybody 
but you. It’s a funny business.” 

“Business?” I asked him. “What 
kind?” 

“Not exactly business,” he said. “It’s 
— er — politics, kind of ; French politics.” 

I snapped him up on that. “Not me,” 
I said. “I’m an American. Business 
may be lousy, and I may have a rotten 
tourist office, but I’m not mixing myself 
up in anything French. And especially 
not politics. You’re a damned fool if 
you start anything like that here. I’ve 
seen too many people beaten up in the 
streets and slammed into jail, for mixing 
up in politics over here. No sir, I’m not 
drawing any cards, and you’d better 
chuck it yourself, son.” 

Well, he blinked 3 . little, and fumbled 
the thing he thought was a beard, and 
came right back at me : 

“I don’t want you to do anything for 
nothing, Matty,” he said, very earnestly. 
“This job is worth ten thousand francs. 
You could use the money, from what you 
say.” 

Ten — thousand — francs I 

What’s the use of trying to find rea- 
sons? What’s the use of trying to ex- 


plain what happened in this thing I so 
proudly refer to as my brain? What’s 
the use of trying to tell you how I kidded 
myself into being a damned fool? Net: 
I told him I would do it. I’d deliver 
his package — for ten thousand francs. 

Well, you should have seen him. He 
acted like a giddy schoolboy. I was the 
greatest guy in the world, a real buddy, 
a real friend. Nobody else would have 
understood him. Sure, he knew about 
the dangers of playing in French politics, 
but — well, this was different. 

We had another drink or so, and he 
left me, telling me to come over to his 
hotel, the Crillon, at seven o’clock to get 
the final dope. I began trying to figure 
this thing out coolly, but the ten thou- 
sand francs kept getting in the way. 

T didn’t make sense. 

O’Brien was mixed up in something. 
He called it politics, but God knew 
what that lad might get into. He want- 
ed me to take a package for him some- 
where ; but with James Algernon O’Brien, 
the package might contain a book on 
Egyptian hieroglyphics, or a pound or 
so of high-grade T.N.T. ; you could nev- 
er tell beforehand. 

So after a while I decided to walk 
over to O’Brien’s hotel and find out more 
about it. I did that. I went to Harry’s 
Bar and got a snort, and then I walked 
down the Rue de Rivoli to the Crillon. 
O’Brien was waiting for me, all right. 
He was in the lounge and talking to a 
big burly guy dressed in corduroy pants 
and a white sport-shirt which left his 
arms bare and showed the feathers on his 
chest. It was some chest, too, and the 
arms would have made any wrestler 
proud. 

Half-pint hailed me. 

“Hello, Matty,” he yelled out. “Come 
on over and meet the Count de Cressol.” 

Well, the Count handed me a funny 
eye. I returned the double-0 on my 
part. He looked slippery to me, what 
with his William Jennings Bryan hair- 
cut and a rodent’s face, and lips that were 
just too, too red. Honest, he looked like 
a squirrel who has just tasted blood. 

Well, this Cressol turned on me what 
he considered to be his charm. “It is 
indeed an honor to know so good a friend 
of the Professor O’Brien.” But he didn’t 
look so happy about it, just the same. 
And that was okay by me. 

But the little Duke pipes up with this : 

“Now, monsoors,” he says in that 
strange language he thinks is French, 



60 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


“let’s go upstairs where we can arrange 
everything.” The Count made that fun- 
ny French gesture, puffing out his face 
and moving his hands up and down, to 
show that he didn’t like it, but it was 
beyond him. He said to O’Brien: 

“If you insist — if you insist. But 
mademoiselle, what will she think ?” 

O’Brien just looked stubborn and set, 
and said shortly: “We’ll discuss it when 
she arrives.” Then he led the way up- 
stairs to his three-room suite, and he 
ordered some drinks sent up. We just 
sat there and talked about nothing at all 
for fifteen or twenty minutes. Cressol 
said very little, and it was plain he was 
quite unhappy. But pretty soon there 
was a knock at the door; and just as if 
we were all living in a story-book, a 
fairy queen walked in! 

No, she just wasn’t real. She was not 
quite as tall as O’Brien, but she was — 
and believe me, I’m a judge on account 
of running a tourist business — the most 
beautiful piece of machinery you ever 
laid your orbs on. Her face was all 
ovals, lustrous and luminous like new 
ivory, and she had a nose that any 
Greek sculptor would have carved in 
gold and stuck on Venus. Her mouth 
was tiny and just a little pointed, as 
though she were just before saying 
“Please ! ” if you get what I mean. And 
that gorgeous brown hair of hers was 
drawn back, Roman fashion, and fas- 
tened with a silver band. 

I T’S no use. I can’t describe her, be- 
cause you wouldn’t believe me. She 
didn’t even walk. She flowed and rip- 
pled. And she rippled and flowed right 
over to where the Count and I were 
standing, as soon as she had kissed 
Half-pint on each cheek in that sisterly 
way French women have when they want 
to show you what a nice, safe guy you 
are. Safe from them, I mean. 

Well, right there I got an idea that if 
Half-pint was fool enough to get mixed 
up in French politics, the way he said, 
it was this girl and not the squirrel- 
faced Count de Cressol who had sold 
him the idea. 

Anyhow, the Count bent over the girl’s 
hand and tickled it with his red, red lips, 
and then she turned toward me, with a 
questioning look at O’Brien. 

“Mademoiselle,” said my little pal, 
“this is Matthew Burke, an old lover of 
France, and the best friend I ever had. 
I just discovered him here this afternoon. 
I brought him here for a reason which I 


have been discussing with Monsieur de 
Cressol. We have been waiting for you 
to consult. Monsieur Burke will — ah — 
be of great assistance to us in a matter 
which you know about. Maybe the 
Count has told you.” 

She caught her breath and stared at 
me, and then I saw a quick flash of eyes 
between her and the Count. But O’Brien 
turned to me and purred : 

“Matty, let me present Mademoiselle 
Marthe du Vast. Perhaps you have 
heard of her.” 

That one floored me. Heard of her? 
Why, this girl was a legend. She was the 
daughter of old man Felix du Vast, who 
manufactures those snappy little cars 
you see everywhere in France. She was 
the richest heiress in Europe, and maybe 
in the world. Sure I’d heard of her. 

W ELL, I smiled and mumbled some- 
thing appropriate when we shook 
hands, but she never even saw my mitt. 
She looked into me. I say “into,” be- 
cause that’s what it was. She just lifted 
those long purple slits that she used for 
eyes, and they sent their ultra-violet 
beam right into my soul. I could feel 
right then that she knew all about me — 
even down to the time I got drunk on 
Papa’s hair-tonic when I was a kid. 

She was going to say something, too; 
but I’ll never know what, because the 
Count cut in with this crack : 

“It is not so facile as that,” he said 
in that oily voice of his, “this affair of 
selecting Monsieur Burke to make our 
little errand. But no. There is much 
which must be considered. It is a prob- 
lem for mademoiselle. Now, if the mes- 
sieurs will permit, it would be better that 
mademoiselle and I should go into 
another room to discuss these things — 
privately.” 

O’Brien gave an imitation of a French 
shrug. He waved the Count away, and 
I suddenly got the impression that he 
wanted them to leave us. 

Anyhow, they did go into the next 
room; and as soon as the door closed 
O’Brien started in: 

“Matty,” he said, “I’ve got to talk 
quick. I think I’m mixed up in a revo- 
lution.” 

He let that sink in. It did. I was 
going to tell him how many different 
kinds of a fool I thought him, but he 
plunged ahead before I got going: 

“No, listen. I said, 7 think’ I’m in a 
revolution. There’s a lot of funny angles 
to this. That’s why I want you to help. 


HALF-PINT GOES NOBLE 


61 


It may be on the level, and it may not. 
But I don’t trust the Count.” 

Neither did I, and I said so. But 
O’Brien hardly heard me. “You see, 
old boy, this is the greatest experiment 
the world has ever seen. There’s going 
to be a revolution — a great bloodless 
revolution. All the fine old noble fam- 
ilies of France are going to step in and 
take hold of the government. It’s the 
revival of the natural ruling classes. My 
God, boy, it’s the greatest thing in his- 
tory ! ” 

Well, you can imagine how I felt. Did 
I care a hoot about French government? 
I did not. Did I want to get mixed up 
in a revolution and maybe have them 
drop my head in a basket after dropping 
the guillotine on it? Not I! Not old 
Matty Conservative Burke. And I was 
going to tell him so, too, when the door 
opened and those two Frenchies toddled 
back into the room. I could see that 
something had happened. Cressol was 
happier. The girl was easier. She walked 
over to Half-pint and held out both 
hands to him. 

“Ah, my little Professeur,” she cooed. 
“Always you Americans, you are so 
clever, so practical. But of course. 
What could be better than that your 
trusted friend should carry the — the 
paquet to my papa ? It will give him of 
pleasure to make the acquaintance of a 
so good friend of France.” 

But I could feel somehow that this 
girl was acting. And I could feel that 
Cressol was acting too, and in a way so 
was O’Brien. I just felt lousy about ev- 
erything. Screwy nuts like Cressol ! 
Beautiful dames that talked one way 
and meant another! Revolution! Lord, 
no! I wanted to go back to Harry’s 
Bar and get tight and forget it. 

B UT I didn’t. I don’t know why, ex- 
actly, unless maybe it was because of 
the thing that Marthe du Vast did next. 
She said: 

“Eh bien, since we are agreed, it is 
time to prepare. Monsieur le Professeur, 
I have the great pleasure of laying here 
before you the sum of money which I 
mentioned — all of it. You will count it, 
please?” 

She pulled out a flat music-roll, un- 
strapped it, and spread it on the table. 
I nearly fainted. There was a wad of 
thousand-franc notes in that package 
that would have choked a horse. 

“Voilaf See? Here it is, together 
With a letter to my papa which you must 


read. It is now remaining for you, Mon- 
sieur le Professeur. The fate of France 
rests in your hands.” 

Half-pint’s face was a study. He 
seemed completely baffled. He picked 
up those bills and counted them, but he 
just wasn’t there at all. We all watched 
him. Cressol’s little eyes just bored into 
him while he counted. Then my little 
pal turned and went to a drawer in his 
trunk and pulled it out. He took out of 
it a handful of nice, new, crisp thousand- 
franc notes and laid them beside the 
others. 

“You see,” he said, chiefly to the girl, 
“I keep my word too.” 

S HE kissed him and told him he was 
a hero and a savior of her sick 
country, and I don’t remember what else. 
And she made him read a long letter she 
had written to her papa, and then she 
put the letter into an envelope and put 
all the money, Half-pint’s and hers, back 
into the music-roll, saying: 

“Look, I have brought this roll be- 
cause it will not attract attention. Mon- 
sieur Burke, this becomes now your own 
responsibility. You will take this letter 
and this roll tonight by the eleven 
o’clock train to my papa in Clermont 
Ferrand. In return he will give you 
something which you are to bring to us 
here, tomorrow. See? We trust you, 
the friend of the Professor. You cannot 
know what importance it has — not only 
the money, monsieur, but the welfare of 
France, is in this roll. I have bought it 
for a few francs so that it will not be 
evident; but it is now an item in the 
history of France, in the history of civili- 
zation, monsieur.” 

And she handed me that wad of dough. 
Me — me with half a million francs on 
the body! 

And Half-pint handed me a thousand- 
franc note for my ticket and expenses. 

Then it got to be nearly ten o’clock; 
and after we had a couple of drinks, I 
left, because I was afraid I’d forget the 
train or something. The little du Vast 
girl kissed me when I left, and Half-pint 
darned near slapped my back off, and I 
thought Cressol was going to kiss me 
too, only I’d have slapped him out of his 
shirt if he had. 

I got away, feeling like a hero ; and as 
it was getting late, I grabbed a taxi and 
went home to my hotel at the Odeon. 
I packed a little bag with my toothbrush 
and pajamas, and I wrapped the music- 
roll up inside of the pajamas. 


62 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


Then, it being ten-thirty and past, I 
took another taxi to the Gare de Lyon. 
The first thing I did was to get me a 
first-class ticket. They have a saying in 
France that “only fools and Americans 
travel first class,” and maybe it’s right. 
But if you can afford it, you’re always 
sure of getting a compartment to yourself 
if you travel that way. And this time I 
could afford it. 

T HEN I remembered I hadn’t had any 
dinner, so I went into the lunchroom 
and bought me a sandwich and coffee. 
I guess I’d been there ten minutes when 
I noticed that a man had been walking 
up and down outside the glass front of 
the place and looking in at me. All of 
a sudden I got scared; I felt positive 
the guy was a plain-clothes agent of the 
Surete Generale ; and if you know what 
that means, you’ll understand why that 
threw a panic into me. The Surete 
Generale in France is a mixture of Scot- 
land Yard, the German espionage service, 
the American F.B.I., and the Russian 
Gay-pay-oo, all combined into a swell, 
tough, fast-moving organization. 

I sat there in a cold sweat for a few 
minutes that seemed like all the Dark 
Ages rolled into one. Then I realized 
that it was only about a minute to 
eleven, so I pulled together what was 
left of Matty Burke, and got up slowly. 
I turned around, picked up my bag, and 
then made a wild dash for the back door 
and was out and across the street before 
the frog knew what was happening. I 
was directly in front of the “Grandes 
Lignes” entrance, and I had just time 
to run like blazes down the quay to the 
track. The train was there, and the big 
clock said just eleven o’clock. The con- 
ductors were blowing those silly tin 
whistles they have in French stations, 
meaning, “All aboard!” I dashed up 
the first coach steps I came to, and 
right then the train started moving. 

I sat there, trying to relax and figure 
things out. Why was that cop after me? 
The Surete don’t bother with little things, 
so they must know about the revolution, 
and that I was carrying that money. I 
didn’t like that, because you can’t get 
mixed up in conspiracies against the 
existing Government in France without 
coming in for a lot of trouble. I mean, 
they can actually send you to the guillo- 
tine in cases of conspiracy or anything 
that smacks of espionage. 

Well, I had got about that far when 
my next shock walked in. 


It was Half-pint O’Brien himself, cane, 
hair, mustache and all. He was puffing 
hard. I was speechless, because I just 
couldn’t figure it. Why in thunder would 
he send me 'on a trip to Clermont and 
then get on the same train ? 

But I found out, all right. 

“Hello, Matty,” he puffed. “Thought 
— I’d — never — make it. Those people — 
they stayed till ten o’clock. Taxi only 
crawled. Couldn’t get waited on at the 
ticket window. It was awful. Listen, 
Matty: I’ve found out definitely that 
Cressol and the girl are impostors ! I’ve 
been having them investigated, and I just 
got a picture of the real Count and real 
Marthe du Vast!” 

With that he hands me a couple of 
photographs. Well, I took one squint 
at the picture of the Count, and I got 
the jitters. It wasn’t Cressol ! I mean, 
it just wasn’t the Cressol I had met. 
Not by ten years and a lot of muscles. 
He had the same W. J. Bryan haircut, 
but that was all. This Cressol — the real 
one — was ten years older, skinnier, and 
looked like a jackass instead of a squir- 
rel. And the girl, too, didn’t look any- 
thing like our mademoiselle. Well, I sat 
there getting madder and madder, but 
this crazy O’Brien grinned. 

“Don’t be sore, Matty. I couldn’t 
help it. I don’t know yet what it’s all 
about. I tell you I still trust that girl — 
and I’m sure she’s no crook or anything, 
because — well, there’s the money they 
turned over. If they had given me a 
check or something, I’d have been sus- 
picious. I didn’t mean to hold out on 
you. Anyhow, I got on this train be- 
cause I want to see myself what happens 
to that money.” 

I couldn’t stay sore at him. 

“Well,” I said, “I don’t trust that Cres- 
sol as far as I could toss this whole 
blamed train. And neither do you. I 
could see it.” 

H E agreed with me, and then he told 
me the whole background of the 
revolution and the girl. He told me that 
he had met this du Vast lady at the 
Sorbonne, and she had introduced him 
to Cressol. They had all talked about 
government, and of course Half-pint had 
to play the little duke and go aristocratic 
about the “natural function of the ruling 
classes.” Anyhow, one thing led to 
another; and Cressol and the girl let it 
out that there was a plan to change the 
government and to turn it over to the 
nobles. Half-pint fell for that. He 


HALF-PINT GOES NOBLE 


63 


wanted to join the “great cause,” be- 
cause he considered it the greatest ex- 
periment. Just imagine! Well, they 
couldn’t let him, because he was a for- 
eigner and not French. No sir, they just 
wouldn’t have him. And finally he either 
suggested himself that he contribute cash 
money to the “cause” — or perhaps they 
slipped the idea in themselves. I couldn’t 
make out which, and I don’t think Half- 
pint remembered very well, either. Still, 
he had had the whole thing investigated ; 
but it was not until after the Count and 
Mademoiselle du Vast had left, that his 
man had come to him with the full in- 
formation. 

W HAT completely twisted O’Brien 
up was that the girl actually came 
across with cash herself. The idea was, of 
course, that her father would finance the 
“bloodless revolution,” if the nobles 
would contribute. Her job and Cressol’s 
was to collect money from the noble 
families. But that didn’t go so well. 
They only got a quarter of a million, and 
they needed more. Old Felix du Vast 
would double anything they could col- 
lect, but he had to see the color of money 
first. That was where Half-pint’s money 
came in and fixed everything hotsy-totsy. 
Or so they said. 

So we sat there, trying to figure it. 
The best I could do was to offer this : 

“Listen, you little sap,” I told him: 
“There is only one way this can be 
crooked, and that is by having me de- 
liver the money to a third party who is 
also a crook. But you say that old man 
du Vast is supposed to give me another 
five hundred thousand, doubling the 
money and making a cool million 
francs?” 

“That’s the idea, crazy as it may seem.” 
“It does, lad ; it is. But if they were 
crooks, then they would expect me to 
howl if there was any dirty work in 
Clermont ?” 

“Sure — if you could still howl,” said 
O’Brien. 

Then I told him about the cop from 
the Surete. 

That crashed him again, and me too. 
The only explanation of that was that 
we were a revolution and the Surete had 
wind of it. But who could have spilled 
it? 

Then something made me dig into my 
bag and get out the music-roll. ... I 
guess I wanted to feel all that money in 
my hand once more. So I pulled it out 
and opened it up. 





“Oh, mon cher imbicile!” sho burbled. 

And — now hold it, friends: there wasn’t 
any money in it at all! It was just 
plain white paper! 

We sat there for a minute, staring at 
each other. Then O’Brien started to 
swear. He called me every name he 
could think of for fully five minutes. 

“Listen, you hot-headed fool,” I said: 
“I didn’t lose those bills. That roll 
hasn’t been out of my hands since I left 
your room. Not once! If they were 
switched, somebody in that bunch was 
double-crossing you. I’ll bet it’s that guy 
Cressol. He’d eat his mother’s heart 
for liver. He’s double-crossed you ! ” 

Well, it was bad. I thought poor 
O’Brien would go crazy at first, but then 


64 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


he just sat in his corner, morose and 
glum, and tried to figure something out 
of nothing. For my part, I was all in, 
and I couldn’t think. I just sat there, 
smoking one cigarette on top of another, 
until we got to Montargis. We stopped 
there for a short time, getting water or 
something, and then we rolled on. Half- 
pint wouldn’t even talk. We just sat 
and sat. I guess I closed my eyes for a 
minute too, and then suddenly the door 
opened, and in stepped a quaint little 
chap, dumpy and fattish and dressed in 
a black clerical jacket, with his collar 
buttoned in the back, smiling at us 
through his pince-nez. He was sweet- 
looking. You could practically tell he 
was one of those nice, comfortable 
American churchmen — a vicar or a rec- 
tor in some smug little town. 

He beamed at us for a moment, and 
then said very benignly : 

“Well, well, well ! I am lucky, indeed. 
I was so afraid I would not find con- 
genial persons in this compartment. By 
the way, are not you gentlemen named 
Burke and O’Brien respectively?” I ad- 
mitted it, and the next thing I knew we 
were looking into the nose of an auto- 
matic, pointed at our tummies. 

“Fellow,” said this nice little dominie 
in a voice like sandpaper rubbing your 
back, “I want that roll of bills — five hun- 
dred thousand francs.” 

It took us a minute to come up for 
air. We don’t scare easy, but that little 
parson gave us a turn. 

“My God I ” I said, trying to kid him 
out of it. “You wouldn’t be holding us 
up, would you ? A man of your cloth ! ” 

“Hand them over, fellow. I want 
those bills,” he said, gritting the words. 
Well, I figured I had nothing to lose but 
a lot of plain white paper, so I gave him 
the music-roll. 

Instantly he was the sweet little vicar 
again. “Thank you very much,” he said. 
“I owe you both an explanation, natural- 
ly. Gentlemen, did you ever hear of the 
Rosary Game?” 

1 HAD. Every tourist agent knows of 
it ; but in case you haven’t encountered 
it, here’s the idea : The crook gets a line 
on a rich American living in a prominent 
hotel abroad. The crook dresses care- 
fully in ultra-conservative clothes, and 
wears a sad and holy expression. He 
hangs around the hotel until he sees the 
rich American sitting in the lobby, and 
he lets a rosary slip to the floor right in 
front of the rich American. The victim 


naturally picks it up and brings it to the 
crook owner. The crook thanks him pro- 
fusely, and they get to talking. Playing 
it carefully, the crook gets to be very 
clubby with the rich American, and 
after a while he tells him that he has a 
very special “opportunity,” open only to 
fine, clean, upright and religious people 
— like him. He is going to let the rich 
American in on that “sure thing.” And 
the rich American wants to get in on it, 
especially since his sanctimonious friend 
is putting his money in the same sure 
thing. And just to prove how honest it 
all is, another nice, fine, clean, upright 
man accidentally joins them, and the 
crook suggests that they let this man 
hold the money and act as depositor. 
Well, believe it or not, they do. And 
that is the last the rich American ever 
sees of his money, or his two fine, upright 
friends. 

That’s the classical way. There are a 
hundred variations, however, and most of 
them don’t bother with the rosary at all. 
I can’t see how-come anybody in his right 
mind would fall for it, but they do. 

S O I said : “Sure I know the Rosary 
Game, but where does that come in 
on this revolution?” 

“Fellow,” said the little crook, still 
dangling his gun in his lap, “there isn’t 
any revolution. The revolution is the 
rosary. Our professorial friend O’Brien 
is the victim. You may be interested to 
know that the gentleman you know as 
the Count de Cressol is actually a very 
clever international — er — operator. He 
enjoys a certain reputation. The name is 
Hutot.” 

Then I got it. 

Boy, how I got it ! Hutot was the name 
of one of the cleverest confidence men in 
Europe. He and his slick pals made a 
specialty of “taking” tourists for their 
cash ; but in this case I could see pretty 
well how he had used Half-pint O’Brien’s 
idiotic “duke” complex as the come-on. 
But I asked him : 

“Okay; but where does the girl come 
in?” 

He smiled blandly. 

“Charming, eh? And remarkable, too. 
She is the — ah — the atnie, the petite amie 
of this Hutot. She should be on the 
stage — a finished actress, really. It was 
not difficult, naturally, for her to interest 
our eager friend here. Do not feel dis- 
consolate, fellow,” he said to O’Brien. 
“I dare say she has had many victims as 
clever as yourself.” 


HALF-PINT GOES NOBLE 


65 


I will not repeat O’Brien’s remark ; it 
was vulgar. 

Well, there seemed nothing to do at 
the moment but sit and talk. So we did. 
I asked the little parson where he came 
in. 

“Ah, fellow,” he said, “in every form 
of the Rosary Game, there is the inevi- 
table stranger who is to be entrusted with 
the funds; in other words, the ‘depositor,’ 
as he is known to the — ah — the pro- 
fession. I was the ‘depositor.’ ” 

I almost got it, but not quite. 

“You were? But why didn’t you ‘de- 
posit’? O’Brien never even saw you.” 

He frowned, as though the idea were 
unpleasant. 

“My entry into the little scene was 
scheduled, but your interference — ah — 
obviated it. Consequently, I decided that 
our friend O’Brien’s money would be 
more advantageous to me than to Hutot. 
I know Hutot. Brilliant chap, and all 
that, but greedy. Utterly greedy ! And 
of course, his mind would not be capable 
of conceiving the little business of the 
false revolution. That was my concept, 
fellow. Rather pretty, eh ?” 

“Say, just who in hell are you?” 
O’Brien snapped at him, finally coming 
out of his trance. 

“Fellow,” said the little crook, with his 
most ministerial manner, “my name is 
well known in my profession — even to 
the police, I dare say, but of no conse- 
quence to you. It is, however, Picker- 
ing — Eustace Pickering. I am a member 
of that great fraternity of men who, 
professionally, avail themselves of oppor- 
tunities as they arise. You, fellow, are 
my opportunity. You have arisen. I 
am taking advantage of you.” 

“You mean you’re double-crossing your 
partner Hutot,” I told him. 

“I dislike your choice of language, fel- 
low,” he purred. “But it is substantially 
the case. I am anticipating Hutot.” 

W ELL, I almost had to laugh. I was 
afraid if I did, he would suspect 
something and even might suspect that 
the money wasn’t in the music-roll he 
had held us up for. So I played in- 
dignant and was going to bawl him out 
for being a double-crosser as well as a 
crook. But I never had a chance. 

The sliding door of the compartment 
slid open with a slam. Two people came 
in; those people were Hutot, — the fake 
Count de Cressol, — and the fake du Vast 
girl. They had on the maddest expres- 
sion you ever saw ; and Cressol — I’ll have 


to call him that because I’ll always think 
of him by that name — had a large, heavy, 
nasty-looking automatic which he flour- 
ished as if he meant business. 

“Haute les mains! Tons!” he barked, 
which meant, “Hands up!” We did it 
pronto, and that blood-tasting squirrel 
snatched the music-roll out of the sur- 
prised Pickering’s pocket so hard that I 
thought he was going to tear it. 

T HE girl was right behind him, all 
sweet and chic in a tailored suit, 
and looking more beautiful than ever. 
She looked excited, though, and she was 
trying to say something; but I couldn’t 
hear it, because Cressol was roaring so 
loud at the little parson, calling him all 
the French names I ever heard of — cow, 
pig, spoiled fish, foot of a monkey and a 
lot more. I thought he was going to 
shoot him; and maybe he was, too, he 
was so mad. But right then something 
happened. Two things, in fact; and I 
couldn’t tell whether one had anything 
to do with the other or not. The first 
thing was that the girl lifted her hand, 
almost as if to steady herself in the rock- 
ing car, and I thought she grabbed the 
little brass lever marked “Alarme,” which 
you are supposed to pull in case of 
trouble. 

Anyhow, the train gave a jar, a lurch 
and a jerk, and started slowing down as 
if the brakes were jammed on quickly. 
It threw Cressol off his balance; and 
right then little Half-pint O’Brien did 
his stuff. I told you that lad was dyna- 
mite. 

He was up and off that seat like a steel 
spring. He jumped clean off his feet, 
head down, and he butted Cressol in the 
third button of his vest so hard you could 
hear the wind going out. Then he was 
all over him. I never saw anybody get 
hit so fast, so hard and so often. Smack, 
smack, smack! Like that. The girl 
screamed. Cressol’s gun went off, but 
apparently did no harm. But it startled 
me out of my hop. I grabbed that gun 
while O’Brien was smacking Cressol, 
and I slammed it against the little par- 
son’s head with what the poets would call 
“right good will.” The little chap hadn’t 
done a thing with his own gun, either. 
I guess he was too bewildered ; it dropped 
onto the floor, and he dropped onto the 
seat, out like alight. 

Well, Cressol, as I have already said, 
was no cripple. He started to roar like 
a lion as soon as he got his wind, and he 
tore into little O’Brien. But he didn’t 


66 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


know that wildcat. O’Brien took one 
smack in the face that might have killed 
any ordinary guy not made of rubber, 
and then he really turned on the heat. 
He jumped up in the air, because he was 
a little guy, and landed on Cressol’s neck. 
He got a full-Nelson on that neck and 
turned the big Frenchman completely 
around with it. Cressol butted him into 
the side of the compartment, but Half- 
int never let go. Instead, he lifted his 
nee and caught the big phony on the 
point of his jaw with all the leverage you 
can get out of a knee, which is some.- 
That ended it. Cressol went down and 
out, crashing to the floor with a noise 
that you could hear even above the train. 

T HEN I noticed things. There was a 
crowd outside the compartment. The 
du Vast lady — yes, I’ll still call her that, 
too — was still screaming. The train had 
stopped. Men were pushing in. They 
had guns. And in a flash I knew those 
men were cops, in spite of their perfectly 
ordinary tight little French-style suits. 

In about ten seconds we were under 
arrest. I mean we had bracelets on our 
wrists, and each of those wrists was at- 


tached by the bracelets to the wrist of a 
cop. They hardly said a word, but in a 
very few more minutes we were taken off 
that train into the station yard of the 
little railroad town of Gien, just before 
you get to Nevers. Then they put us 
into one big Renault, and we were off. 

Well, we were all pretty glum, but 
O’Brien was just dazed. He could only 
keep saying to me: 

“What a fool I’ve been! Matty, im- 
agine that sweet kid being a crook, being 
that beast’s girl!” 

Well, I had got so I could imagine it 
all right. And pretty soon, there being 
nothing else to do, I went to sleep and let 
O’Brien rave. 

We left Gien about one o’clock, and we 
got back into the Paris boulevards about 
three in the morning. We drove down 
the Rue des Mathurins - and the first 
thing I knew, we turned right into that 
big cement building where the Surety 
Generate has its headquarters. Then they 
took our shoelaces and collar-buttons and 
practically everything that was loose on 
us. They got my bag and the music-roll 
with fake bills, and they shoved each of 
us into a separate cell. 



HALF-PINT GOES NOBLE 


67 


Well, the idea of going into the Surete 
worried me. First I figured the pinch 
was caused by our fight on the train. Of 
course that didn’t explain the plain- 
clothes men. But when I saw the Surete 
building, I knew it was something worse, 
something all planned. 

Well, pretty soon somebody unlocked 
the door, and a neat little Frenchman 
with a wing collar, black jacket and 
striped pants came in with two Surete 
cops. 

“Your name?” he asked me. 

I told him ; and I told him I wanted 
a lawyer and the American Consul and 
a lot of other things. But he just looked 
at me, turned on his heel and walked out, 
leaving the cops to lock the door. 

I guess I stayed in that room for a few 
hours — I had forgotten to wind my watch, 
so I didn’t know exactly — before that 
same little Frenchman came back again. 
He beckoned to me, and I came out. 
Three cops fell in alongside and behind 
me. The neat little man led me down 
the corridor to a heavy padded door 
which he pushed open, and in we all went. 

N OW, life is full of little surprises, and 
that’s all part of the fun ; but the 
surprises I got in the next fifteen or 
thirty minutes just came too fast. 

There was a large room inside that 
door, and it was filled with a lot of people, 
chiefly cops and plain-clothes men of the 
Surete. There was a platform at one 
end with a desk on it ; and sitting at that 
desk was a man in a black robe with 
gathered sleeves — very dignified, very 
French, very stern-looking, and so fat 
that I wondered if the platform would 
hold him. Over in a corner was a bench 
with my old friend Cressol and his pal 
Pickering, the little parson, sitting there 
and looking pretty glum and seedy. On 
another bench, just in front of the two 
crooks, was my little pal O’Brien; and 
although he looked seedy too, on account 
of they had taken his shoelaces and his 
collar-buttons and everything else that 
was loose, he didn’t look a bit glum. Not 
he ! The reason was pretty plain, too. It 
was that little lady who called herself du 
Vast. She was sitting right there along- 
side of him, and they were holding hands 
and acting like there was nobody in 
the room but them. 

Well, I didn’t blame Half-pint. This 
girl might have been a crook or anything 
else you want to call her ; but believe me, 
she was plenty good for your eyesight. 
Yes sirl 


But I didn’t have much time for specu- 
lation. The neat little man led me right 
up in front of the judge’s platform and 
shoved me behind a rail. Then he said, 
in a voice like a talking machine : 

“Monsieur le President,” — they call the 
judges presidents because they preside, 
I suppose, — “Monsieur 1; President,” he 
said, “the accused : Burke, Matthew J., 
American citizen, agent in tourism, aged 
thirty-four.” 

“Uhr-r-r-r-umph ! ” remarked the judge, 
like a fat sea-lion. “Let the other be 
brought forward also.” He made a sig- 
nal to one of the huissiers or court offi- 
cers, and that one went over to where 
little O’Brien and the girl were holding 



“Gently, gently!” said the tat judge. 


hands and chinning. He took O’Brien 
by the shoulder, pulled him up out of 
that, and led him over to the rail and 
shoved him in alongside of me. 

The neat little man, who I gathered 
was some kind of a secretary, immediate- 
ly pipes up with Half-pint’s name: 

“O’Brien, James Algernon, American 
citizen, professor at the Sorbonne, aged 
thirty-three.” 

Half-pint was in a daze. He looked 
as he had just been pulled out of a 
dream, and I guess maybe he had. He 
tried to whisper something to me, but 
the judge yelled: 

“Silence!” Then he said to me in a 
soft, purring voice: 

“Monsieur, you are the victim of a 
curious series of circumstance. Unwit- 
tingly you have been an instrument in 
the apprehension and capture of danger- 
ous criminals, swindlers and counterfeit- 
ers who have for a prolonged period of 
time been a menace, not only to the law 
and order of the Third French Republic, 
but to the entire industry of tourism in 
France.” 


68 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


He was quiet for a minute, and I was 
beginning to feel good. Then he looked 
us both over and suddenly roared out : 

“O’Brien and Burke, you are charged 
with conspiracy against the Third Re- 
public of France, with plotting revolu- 
tion, with fomenting a movement against 
the existing government of France ! What 
have you to say to this charge?” 

We had plenty to say, believe me. 
O’Brien went noble, and puffed and tried 
to get indignant, but I was just mad. I 
yelled — yelled because the whole screwy 
business had got me jumpy. 

“You’re crazy ! ” I yelled. “The whole 
lot of you are crazy. There wasn’t any 
plot, and you know it. You’ve arrested 
Hutot and Pickering, haven’t you ? And 
that girl who calls herself du Vast, hey? 
Well, don’t you know a swindle when you 
see it? Can’t you figure out that there 
wasn’t any revolution ? My God, do you 
want to drive us ga-ga ?” 

Boy, but I was sore. And did it get 
me anything? It did not. 

“Gently, gently,” said the fat judge. 
“Is it that you wish also to face the 
charge of contempt? One does not, in 
France, suggest that the president of the 
instruction is insane, my little monsieur.” 

Of course that shut me up, and it 
closed Half-pint’s mouth too, just when 
he was going to let off a lot of steam. And 
then the president went into a long- 
winded spiel from which we gathered 
that due to the brilliance of some guy 
called “Officer Thibault, inspector first 
class of the Surete,” who seemed to be 
a combination of Sherlock Holmes, J. 
Edgar Hoover and Hairbreadth Harry, 
they had all the dope on us. Well, by 
the time the judge finished, I could see 
nothing in front of me but Devil’s Island. 

H alf-pint O’brien fooled me, 

though. He started talking calmly 
and nice, but in that awful French of 
his. He wasn’t very clear, but I guess 
they understood him. He said : 

“No, we can’t deny any of your 
charges. I don’t know who this Officer 
Thibault is, nor where he got his infor- 
mation, but there are some things he 
didn’t know. One of them is that I got 
suspicious of this man who called him- 
self Cressol. I guess I didn’t like him. 
Anyhow, I had him investigated, and I 
was shown a picture of the real Cressol. 
So I knew then that it was a fake of 
some kind. I also had Marthe du Vast 
looked up, and I found that she was a 
fake too. 


“Well, I guessed they were trying to 
get some money from me, but — well, if 
the Court will permit me to say it, I 
guess I liked that girl pretty well, and 
that’s how I happened to get mixed up in 
this mess. 

“But I don’t care now. You can put 
me in prison if you want to, only I want 
you to let that girl go. She is a decent 
girl, and she’s mixed up in a bad crowd. 
I love that girl. I want to marry that 
girl. I don’t care if she’s been a crook or 
anything. I want to marry her and take 
her out of all that. I want you — ” 

B UT he couldn’t go on. Everybody was 
howling with laughter, as if it was 
the funniest thing they ever heard. May- 
be it was, too; but we didn’t know it 
then. Even the fat judge was grinning 
and shaking like a custard pie. Then he 
went on talking, but his voice was pretty 
shaky : 

“Monsieur le Professeur,” he said, 
“your chivalry is remarkable. It shall 
stand to mitigate the charges against you. 
Nevertheless, monsieur, these charges as 
brought by the Officer Thibault are grave. 
I shall shortly read your penalties. There 
is one more point, however, that I wish 
to clear up. It is drawn also from the 
report of the excellent Officer Thibault. 
You are not, perhaps, aware that the con- 
tribution of two hundred fifty thousand 
francs made by Hutot, alias Cressol, was 
in worthless counterfeit money — in notes, 
messieurs, fabricated by him from plates 
engraved by his associate in many crimi- 
nal practices — Pickering, Eustace. But 
the woman called du Vast made a sub- 
stitution of a false portfolio or music- 
roll, so that Monsieur Burke was never 
actually in possession of the moneys he 
had contracted to carry. Obviously, 
messieurs, this substitution was done 
without the knowledge of Hutot, alias 
Cressol, for his plan was to be present on 
that Clermont Express and to take the 
money by force of arms, if need be, from 
Monsieur Burke. 

“We will not, at this juncture, discuss 
the motives of the substitution done by 
the woman called du Vast. The result, 
as you know, was that Hutot, alias Cres- 
sol, found not only that O’Brien had en- 
gendered suspicions and had come on the 
train; but that his own associate^ Pick- 
ering, had made an effort to seize the 
money for himself. Furthermore, it was 
due to the efforts of this same Officer 
Thibault that a detective of the Surety 
— the agent second-class Petiot, Jacques 


HALF-PINT GOES NOBLE 69 


— attempted to withhold you, Monsieur 
Burke, and restrain you from taking the 
Clermont express and thereby complet- 
ing an action hostile to the government 
and inimical to France. This, I believe, 
will be of interest to you, messieurs.” 

Of interest? It burned us up. But 
he didn’t stop longer than a second. 

“Now, messieurs, the penalties.” 

He grew solemn. There was silence in 
the court— nervous silence. Me, I shiv- 
ered. O’Brien, beside me, was breathing 
hard. 

“The Court d’Instruction de Paris, 
under the presidence of Baptiste Du- 
fayeau, judge, imposes upon the Ameri- 
can citizen, Burke, Matthew J., the pen- 
alty of expulsion from France, said 
expulsion to become effective within ten 
days after the sitting of this Court.” 

I felt as if somebody had hit me with 
a club. 

Me — deported from France! Me — 
without a penny in the world, kicked out 
of the only poor little business I had to 
live on ! Me — a decent, law-abiding guy, 
with a decent reputation in the American 
colony, deported, kicked out, maybe try- 
ing to get a passage by begging from the 
American Aid Society ! 

And that judge went on : 

“The Court d’lnstruction de Paris,” 
he started to rumble, “under the presi- 
dence of the same Baptiste Dufayeau, 
judge, imposes upon O’Brien, James Al- 
gernon, the double penalty of constant 
surveillance by the Officer Thibault, 
Marguerite, Inspector First Class of the 
Surete Generate, for the remainder of his 
life, together with a similar expulsion 
from France, said expulsion to be effec- 
tive within those same ten days after the 
sitting of this Court, allowing for the 
due publishing of marriage banns, as pre- 
scribed by French law. Officer Thibault, 
Marguerite — take charge of the prisoner.” 

W HILE we were both struggling to 
consciousness, that little du Vast 
lady got up off her bench and came for- 
ward. She walked over to Half-pint 
O’Brien and held out her arms to him. 

And friends, “Officer Thibault, Mar- 
guerite,” certainly did take charge! 

“Oh, mon cher imbecile /” she burbled. 
“Oh, my dear idiot ! Oh, my little cab- 
bage a la creme! Oh, my little cocotte, 
mon coco, mon petit rouquin !” 

And what happened then? Yeah, it’s 
just as screwy as you think. The fat 
cherub of a judge came down off his 

Another colorful story by Fulton Grant is 


platform and put his arm around O’Brien 
and the girl, saying: 

“Mes enfants — this is a good thing 
that you do. To the Professor O’Brien, 
I apologize in the name of France. I 
apologize that, in an effort to apprehend 
the two criminals Hutot and Pickering, 
Officer Thibault, Marguerite, found it 
necessary to use the device of selecting 
you for a decoy, a cheval d’api, in the 
carrying out of her duty. Yet you should 
know, monsieur, that this young woman 
whom you will, I foresee, take as wife, is 
one of France’s most remarkable agents 
of justice and the daughter of the emi- 
nent criminologist Auguste Thibault. For 
eleven months she has been in pursuit of 
those two public enemies, acting the role, 
not always pleasant nor amusing to her- 
self, of belonging to the criminal frater- 
nity. Now, through you, she has made 
her triumph. I cannot but regret, mon- 
sieur, that it will be her last act in the 
service of France; yet in her lifelong sur- 
veyance of yourself, I wish her all the 
good will and the happiness that so noble 
and gallant a character as yourself can 
bring her.” 

"AS to you, Monsieur Burke,” he rum- 
r\ bled, turning to me, “France is also 
indebted to you. If your interdiction de 
sejour seems a penalty too rigid, it is 
that, evidently, with your business of 
tourism so precarious, and in view of 
your already long stay in France, you 
owe it to yourself — yes, and to your own 
country, too — to return, to become 
Americanized, to devote your unquestion- 
able talents and energies to enterprises 
more profitable.” 

Then he reached to the top of his desk 
and produced the package of money 
which my sappy pal O’Brien had tried to 
toss away into a revolution, and handed 
it to him. 

“This money, monsieur, is yours. But 
do not fail to remember that ten of these 
bills are the property of your friend and 
countryman. You hold yourself to be 
an aristocrat, monsieur, so remember 
that an aristocrat scrupulously maintains 
his word.” 

Yeah, that’s how I got home. 

Sure, and they were married, those 
two. I was star witness, or best man, as 
they say over here. And they live in 
Brooklyn, God knows why. 

Well, I told you this was Half-pint’s 
story, only he went noble on me on ac- 
count of Marguerite. 

scheduled for the next (November) issue. 



in <l A merica 

Morrissey and the Russian Sailor 


BIOGRAPHY titled “Life of 
John Morrissey, the Irish Boy 
Who Fought His Way to Fame 
and Fortune” tells about a prize- 
fighter, gambler, politician who be- 
came State Senator and Member of 
Congress. His big fights were in the 
1850’s and he defeated Thompson, the 
Yankee Clipper, and the Benicia boy, 
in the squared circle, as related in 
this song. He was a “Paddy” and a 
ring hero, too, as related. But sporting 
authorities consulted on the point fail 
to find that he ever planted his knuck- 
les in a Russian sailor’s face nor 
fought any such thirty-eight-round 
contest as here described. Yet the 
song delivers the atmosphere of the 
old-time bare-fisted ring fight. 

It is presented here as sung by M. C. 
Dean, of Virginia, Minnesota, author 
of “The Flying Cloud,” a collec- 
tion of lumberjack and Great Lakes 
songs and American ballads. On the 
currency of this and similar ballads 
Franz Rickaby wrote this eloquent 
and informative note: “In the logging 
camp the hegemony in song belonged 


to the Irish. Although the Scotch and 
French-C anadian occur occasionally, 
tje Irish were dominant, and the 
Irish street-song was the pattern upon 
which a liberal portion of the shanty- 
songs were made. Irishmen sailed the 
seas of the world. In the armies of 
England they fought against Russia 
and died on the fields of Indian in- 
surrection. In Canada and the United 
States, whither they migrated in hordes, 
they fought wherever there was fight- 
ing. And in this New World those of 
them who were thrifty and provident 
laid foundations of homes; and those 
who were not, didn’t. But whatever 
they did, they made and sang songs; 
and wherever they went roving, they 
took them along. Thus it was that the 
shanties rang with songs of ships and 
piracy, of American battle charges, 
and of prize-fights in far-lying ports 
of the world; of charging the heights 
of Alma, of dying in India for Bri- 
tannia and Britannia’s Queen, and of 
sailing the lakes with red iron ore — 
of all these, as well as of harvesting 
the mighty pine.” 



W 




‘■W" 

Come all you sons of E - rin, at - ten • tion now I crave, While I re * late the 


r 9— i -- i 





— — 

jvr r J bW : m • * N _ p j p - _ b*- t 



K — =^- 





prais - es of an I - rish he - ro brave, Con-cern - ing a great fight, me boys, all 



on the oth - er day, Be-tween a Rus - sian sail - or and bold Jack Mor-ris-sey. 


1 Come all you sons of Erin, attention now I 

crave, 

While I relate the praises of an Irish hero 
brave, 

Concerning a great fight, me boys, all on the 
other day, 

Between a Russian sailor and bold Jack 
Morrissey. 

2 It was in Terra del Fuego, in South America, 
The Russian challenged Morrissey and unto 

him did say 


“I hear you are a fighting man, and wear a 
belt I see. 

What do you say, will you consent to have a 
round with me?” 

3 Then up spoke bold Jack Morrissey, with a 
heart so stout and true, 

Saying, “I am a gallant Irishman that never 
was subdued. 

Oh, IcanwhaleaY ankee, a Saxon bull or bear, 
And in honor of old Paddy’s land I’ll still 
those laurels wear." 


70 


Guaranteed Antiques of Song and Story 

Editedby CARL SANDBURG 

Author of "Abraham Lincoln,” "Smoke and Steel,” "The People, Yes!” etc. 



MC 


Several hundred of our 
pioneer songs have 
been gathered by Carl 
Sandburg and pub- 
lished in book form 
by Harcourt, Brace 
& Company under the 
title “The American 
Songbag.” 


4 These words enraged the Russian upon that 
foreign land, 

To think that he would be put down by any 
Irishman. 

He says, “You are too light for me. On that 
make no mistake. 

I would have you to resign the belt, or else 
your life I’ll take.” 


7 They both shook hands, walked round the 

ring, commencing then to fight. 

It filled each Irish heart with joy for to be- 
hold the sight. 

The Russian he floored Morrissey up to the 
eleventh round, 

With English, Russian, and Saxon cheers the 
valley did resound. 

8 A minute and a half our hero lay before he 

could rise. 

The word went all around the field: “He’s 
dead," were all their cries. 

But Morrissey raised manfully, and raising 
from the ground, 

From that until the twentieth the Russian he 
put down. 

9 Up to the thirty-seventh round 'twas fall and 

fall about, 

Which made the burly sailor to keep a sharp 
lookout. 

The Russian called his second and asked for 
a glass of wine. 

Our Irish hero smiled and said, “The battle 
will be mine.” 


5 To fight upon the tenth of June these heroes 
did agree, 

And thousands came from every part the 
battle for to see. 

The English and the Russians, their hearts 
were filled with glee; 

They swore the Russian sailor boy would kill 
bold Morrissey. 


10 The thirty-eighth decided all. The Russian 
felt the smart 

When Morrissey, with a fearful blow, he 
struck him o’er the heart. 

A doctor he was called on to open up a vein. 

He said it was quite useless, he would never 
fight again. 


6 They both stripped off, stepped in the ring, 
most glorious to be seen, 

And Morrissey put on the belt bound round 
with shamrocks green. 

Full twenty thousand dollars, as you may 
plainly see, 

That was to be the champion’s prize that 
gained the victory. 


11 Our hero conquered Thompson, the Yankee 
Clipper too; 

The Benicia boy and Shepherd he nobly did 
subdue. 

So let us fill a flowing bowl and drink a health 
galore 

To brave Jack Morrissey and Paddies ever- 
more. 


71 


The Pit That He 


A deeply interesting novelette of the cattle-country today. 

By Wilbur Hall 


ECAUSE it was the 
slack season on the 
Big-B — Little-B, and 
because Henry 
Brookins had gone to 
San Francisco for his 
son’s marriage, Boze- 
man Harter, the fore- 
man, was in the ranch office belatedly 
putting to rights the late spring round- 
up tally-book. Virgil Dade — top-hand, 
lounging in their owner’s leather chair — 
was making scandalous comments on the 
science of arithmetic, when the roust- 
about came to the outer door. 

“The’s a new waitress at the Downey 
House, Virge,” he said laconically. “I 
told her how you spelt your name.” He 
threw the weekly mail-sack to the floor, 
slammed the screen door and withdrew, 
whistling. 

“I’ve been on spreads,” Dade re- 
marked, pulling the stout canvas bag 
nearer with one spurred heel, “where the 
roustabouts knew their place. Wonder 
if Mead and Scarbro have wrote me 
about that slicker I ordered.” 

“Look and see,” Harter suggested. 
. . . “And nine is fourteen, and the four 
heavy cows we threw in the woods lot 
makes nineteen.” The foreman heaved a 
sigh. “If arithmetic didn’t come right 
up and eat sugar out of my hand, Virge, 
how do you think you’d get the fifty a 
month you don’t earn ? What’s the mat- 
ter now?” 

Dade was turning a soiled envelope 
over in his hand. 

“How do you spell urgent?” he in- 
quired. 

“Pronto. Why ?” 

“This one’s spelled with a ‘ ; \ What 
old-timer would be hen-scratching urgent 
on a letter to the boss from Pascort?” 

Harter scowled. 

“Pascort? That’s over east in Mesoro 
County. I don’t call to mind any — 
Here, let me see it.” 


Dade tossed the letter across the desk. 
Boze Harter studied it thoughtfully. 

“Mr. Brookins only told me to open 
anything that came from the Stockmen’s 
Association or a buyer. This here — ” 
“There’s still mails running to Frisco.” 
“I hate to bother Mr. Brookins. May- 
be he wants to get the boy married 
tight — you can’t tell. And I know now 
who this is from.” 

“That ought to help.” 

“It’s a two-fisted old trouble-shooter 
named Pom Rittenhouse.” 

“Does the ranch owe him money?” 
“Not money. I’ve seen this man here 
visiting a few times. Sort of pious and 
queer, but a he-man.” 

“You’re the foreman. But seems to 
me I’ve heard about a law against open- 
ing other people’s mail.” 

Harter was scarcely listening. “Mr. 
Brookins told me that old Rittenhouse 
was a friend of his father’s, and if he 
ever wanted anything from the Big-B — 
Little-B he could have it.” With sud- 
den resolution, he ripped the end from 
the envelope. “Urgent, eh?” he repeated. 

The enclosure was not literature, but 
it said something. 

Pomfret A. Rittenhouse 
Aberdeen-Angus Cattle 

Pascort, Jul 29 
Freni Brookins Im sort of bogged down 
with trubbles an shore wood like it to have 
you tie in at my barn if you can cut it. 
Got my foot in one of Homer Cannings 
long ropes over the killin of a sheepherder 
frend of mine name of Basque Louie an 
for a man that aint scared of anything Im 
scared More when I see you 
Yore frend 
P. A. Rittenhouse 

Virgil Dade was scornful. “You say 
the man that wrote that is full-sized?” 

“Full-sized and plenty able to take 
care of himself in any ordinary kind of 
company,” Harter said, puzzling. “I’ve 
72 





heard this Homer Canning is a big man 
over east of the hills. But what kind of 
troubles does old Mr. Rittenhouse mean ?” 

“There’s three kinds,” Dade replied, 
from the rich experience of twenty-six 
years, “ — money, women, and a horse 
you can’t rein Spanish.” 

“You can leave out two of those. Rit- 
tenhouse could rein a horse in any 
language, and he’s older than you by 
fifty years and got more sense by three 
hundred. That leaves money; but — ” 
“Then why not mail him ten till next 
pay-day ?” 

“From what I’ve heard Mr. Brookins 
say, Rittenhouse could have anything 
that’s 1 left over from pay-rolls and black- 
leg serum.” Harter was at the office 
safe, fumbling with the small combina- 
tion knob. “I’ll take some money along, 
but I’ve got a sort of hazy notion — ” 
“Take it?” Dade inquired. “You 
don’t mean you’re going over — ” 


“Not me. We/” The foreman opened 
the safe, took out a sheaf of currency, 
slammed the iron door. “I know what 
Mr. Brookins would do if he was here, 
and I know what you and I are going to 
do, now he isn’t. We’re going to take a 
little pasear into Mesoro County for 
to see and for to find out — and you can 
spell urgent any way you want to, as far 
as I care ! ” 

P ASCORT, publicized by the secretary 
of its aspiring Chamber of Commerce 
as “the Small Town with the Big Back- 
country” lay steaming in the heat of a 
muggy August day. Northward, omi- 
nous thunder-heads loomed above the 
mountains, threatening one of those vio- 
lent midsummer rains that often come 
to break the back of a stifling and humid 
spell in Southwestern mountain regions. 
Along Cottonwood Street were a few out- 
moded automobiles belonging to farmers 


74 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


and stockmen; a dozen saddled horses, 
too languid even to fight the flies, hung 
their heads at the deeply chewed hitch- 
rails still extant; such human beings as 
showed themselves did it spiritlessly, 
with dragging feet, and lost themselves 
as soon as possible in the comparative 
coolness of Zack’s Place, the Bijou or the 
Mesoro County Mercantile Store. 

Uncle Ambrose Garbutt, fanning him- 
self on the sweltering portico of the 
Hughes Hotel, remained out of doors 
only because it was less uncomfortable 
for him there — his wife Martha having 
years before invented a fiction that some- 
how Ambrose was responsible for these 
hot periods and her prostration under 
them. Uncle Ambrose, indolently sur- 
veying the street between snoozes, ob- 
served that the one big car in sight was 
that of Homer Canning. It was parked 
before his offices in the Hammond Block ; 
it gleamed and glittered in the sun as 
though immune to that planet’s most sub- 
versive efforts; equally indifferent was 
hard-mouthed young Jess Morgan, its 
driver, who sat behind the wheel under 
his very wide-brimmed range hat, ap- 
parently contemptuous of the elements. 

In a way, Uncle Ambrose soliloquized, 
Jess was a sort of symbol of the attitude 
of the whole Canning staff and retinue 
toward mortal weaknesses and the softer 
virtues. Likely Canning himself was up- 
stairs there now, in one of his maze of 
mysterious offices, figuring out some ne- 
farious enterprise— -financial, political or 
personal — not even conscious of the sul- 
triness that was laying low the rest of 
the Pascort Valley and environing 
mountains. Well, it was good judgment 
not to bother your head at any time 
about Homer Canning’s activities ; so the 
fat hotel proprietor sighed, dabbed at a 
fly, dozed off. 

I N one trifling particular he had been 
mistaken in his surmise as to Canning’s 
immediate preoccupation. True, the 
boss of Mesoro County was contemplat- 
ing an enterprise, the nefariousness of 
which will be adjudged by each of us for 
himself ; but he was not doing so while 
unconscious of the state of the weather. 
On the contrary, he was at that precise 
moment concerning himself particularly 
with the weather — had even twisted 
about in his big swivel-chair so that he 
could look out of window northward to 
where, above the patent flue of Dedder- 
er’s Bakery, he could see the great masses 
of gray-black clouds that rested heavily 


on the peaks and pinnacles of the moun- 
tains. 

Byington, a dark, sleek man with 
close-cropped hair and close-set eyes, 
spoke out of a corner of his mouth. 

“O. K. But if you don’t get a rain in 
the hills?” 

C ANNING swung back. He was a 
large, fine-looking man, with a smile 
both pleased and pleasing. His size, his 
good looks and his smile were defiriite 
assets, and Canning handled assets profit- 
ably. He smiled at His henchman. 

“You won’t even trust Providence, will 
you, By?” 

“I don’t trust anything, in a job like 
this.” 

“All right; if it fools me completely 
and we don’t get a cloudburst up above 
Bain’s sometime in the next forty-eight 
hours, it will be reported as just another 
disappearance; that’s all. The Gorge 
will keep the secret, or a freshet will 
bring it out, miles below, enough later 
to be safe. I’m not such a fool as to play 
my cards on the strength of one ace I ” 
Byington shrugged. “I still don’t See 
why you don’t send Aguerre or Pete 
Rolls. I’d keep out of it myself.” 

“It was just because you kept out of it 
that Aguerre made a mess of the Basque 
Louie job ! ” Canning retorted, more 
sharply. “And when he made a mess of 
it, along comes this damned stubborn, 
God-fearing Aberdeen breeder for me to 
take on.” Canning examined a fore- 
finger thoughtfully. “No, By, I’ll attehd 
to the business myself, thanks 1 ” 

‘‘All right, chief. What do you want 
me to do ?” 

“I want you to be at home at Willows 
tomorrow morning and to let it be known 
that I’m coming to settle that Latchkey 
deal. Jess will drive me down along to- 
ward three o’clock, and we’ll be in the 
ranch office all the rest of the afternoon. 
If you want to have the Spencers and Art 
Black and the supervisor in for a game 
of cards along about nine, it will be all 
right with me,” He leaned forward a 
little. “I’m going to be at your ranch all 
afternoon and evening. Is that clear?” 

“It’s clear you’re building an air-tight 
alibi — yes. But what I don’t see — -” 
Canning interrupted: “No? There’s 
no reason, is there, why one of your 
hands — say Goings, maybe, because he’s 
about my build — there’s no reason why 
Goings shouldn’t take his car and go for 
a little trip in the late afternoon, is 
there?” 


THE PIT THAT HE DIGGED 


75 



“Oh ! ” Byington studied the question. 
“But suppose you meet somebody that 
knows Goings?” He laughed without 
mirth. “I mean, suppose Goings does!” 

“If Goings takes the old Indian Trail 
road and moves right along, the people he 
meets won’t worry me.” 

“The Indian Trail road ? You couldn’t 
ride a burro over parts of it ! ” 

“I’m not riding a burro. Goings is 
driving, alone, in his car.” 

Byington shrugged once more. “Noth- 
ing stops you, does it?” he exclaimed 
with grudging admiration. “You’ve 
thought everything else out — have you 
thought out that old man Rittenhouse is 
touchy about you right now, and that 
he’s still awful fast on the draw?” 

“You may be surprised, Byington, to 
know that I’ve even thought of that.” He 
turned and picked up a walking-stick that 
leaned against a window-ledge. “You’ve 
noticed that I carry this now and then. 
Did you ever happen to handle it?” 

“No.” Byington took it into his hand. 
His eyebrows lifted; he raised the cane 
slightly and dropped the elaborately 
carved silver knob into his left palm. 
“I’ll be damned! Why, I never even 
guessed ! ” 

“I don’t advise you to try using it 
without some practice, By. For instance, 
how would you hit a man with it so as to 
leave the smallest trace?” 

“I don’t know anything about it. I 
suppose I’d just — hit him.” 

“And smash his skull like an eggshell. 
A coroner’s jury would spot you and your 
walking-stick clear across the county.” 
Canning rose and took the cane, holding 
it lightly a third of the way from the 
ferrule. Almost daintily he dropped it 


alongside his lieutenant’s left ear, and 
onto the shoulder where it joined the 
neck. Byington uttered a sharp exclama- 
tion of pain; his head was pulled awry 
and his left arm dropped inert to his 
side. He reached for the numbed hand — 
rubbed wrist and forearm briskly. His 
fingers, limp and of a gray-white pallor, 
began to function, regain their color. 

“I feel like I’d been hit with a meat- 
cleaver!” he complained. 

“That was a glancing blow — and light. 
But it can be given punch.” 

“And not leave a mark ?” 

“The sort of marks a body might get 
by falling into a gorge, for instance, or if 
it was pitched and rolled and tossed down 
that gorge by high water.” Canning 
smiled — a cold smile, not so pleasant to 
see. “That’s why I turned weather 
prophet just now, Byington,” he added, 
as he put the loaded stick aside. 

The black-haired man seemed to re- 
view the project. He said : “It’s too bad 
you couldn’t work it some way to get 
Rittenhouse to sell you that herd of Aber- 
deens of his. Some day that’s going to be 
a money-making breed out this way.” 

“You know more about that than I 
would.” Canning leaned back in his 
swivel-chair. “I overlooked that possi- 
bility, I’ll admit. And I don’t want to 
overlook anything.” 

“No reason why the last thing the old 
man did he couldn’t sell you his string.” 

Canning laughed. “If I could get away 
to go up tomorrow and see him, I’d make 
him an offer. But I’ll be busy at your 
ranch, and I couldn’t trust Goings to buy 
for me.” 

“Hell ! That’s right.” And Byington 
frowned. “Why couldn’t you go tomor- 


76 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 



row, and then the next day — well, Rit- 
tenhouse might fall off his horse on the 
fifth as well as on the fourth, I should 
think.” 

“Wait a minute. I will go up on the 
fifth.” 

“You’ve got me balled up now. I — ” 

Canning interrupted: “It gilds the 
lily ! ” he exclaimed with a laugh. “Un- 
less somebody stumbles across the body 
first, which they won’t, I’ll buy that herd 
Thursday — the fifth. Don’t get so jit- 
tery ! It’s simple ! ” 

“To you ! ” 

“Listen, then : I’ll take Dad Pastor up 
with me that day — he’s as old as Noah’s 
grandfather! — and he’ll ride old Ritten- 
house’s horse around the corrals and 
stock till some neighbor sees us. On the 
fifth — Thursday.” 

Byington was checking all the steps. 
“It’s bold enough!” he admitted. “If 
the storm holds off, you’ll be safe any 
way you take it.” 

“I’m. crowding my luck, By! I’ve 
got a hunch it won’t rain in the mountains 
before Thursday. It takes eight or ten 
hours for the run-off to get down as far as 
the Gorge, and by that time — ” 

There was a quick knock at the door, 
and a tight-lipped youth came in with a 
bundle of checks and papers. 

“Davids brought the mail, Mr. Can- 
ning,” he said. 

“Davids ? Who’s Davids ?” 

“That sick man in the post office. You 
— er — made friends with him.” 

“Oh. What made him bring it?” 

“He said he was coming by. I think he 
wants to see you.” 

“Send him in. You breeze, By!” 

In a moment a pale, stooped man, ob- 
viously nervous, entered. 

“Maybe I shouldn’t bother you, Mr. 
Canning,” he said. “But you said a while 
back if I saw anything at the office — ” 


“That’s right. Sit down, Davids. Do 
you want a little cough medicine ?” Can- 
ning’s smile was friendly and easy. 

“I guess so, thanks.” 

C ANNING opened a desk drawer, ex- 
tracted a bottle and poured two 
generous drinks. The clerk choked over 
his, but he put it all down. 

“Something on your mind, Davids?” 
his host inquired. 

“You wanted to know about any letters 
that — that a certain party sent.” 

“I don’t remember mentioning it. But 
that’s all right. I’m always interested in 
the people around Pascort, you know.” 

“Yes sir. Well, that party sent a letter 
two or three days ago. I heard Bob — I 
heard one of the rural-route carriers 
speaking of it. He said it was marked 
‘urgent’.” 

“Urgent, eh? I hope our old friend 
isn’t in any trouble.” 

“That’s what made Roberts — that’s 
how the carrier came to bring it up. He’d 
heard from somebody — Mrs. Bass, I 
guess; Harve Bass and his wife live up 
just beyond there — ” 

“Oh, yes. I know the Basses. And 
your friend the carrier said — ” 

“He said Mrs. Bass — I think it was 
Mrs. Bass — said that Rit — that party 
was worrying over something, sort of. 
Some friend of his — a sheepherder — ” 
Canning interrupted him with a laugh. 
“Oh, I don’t want to know any of Mrs. 
Bass’ secrets, Davids, or anyone else’s. 
And I guess most of this is just imagina- 
tion.” 

“I guess so. But anyway, I thought 
you might want to know.” 

“It was kind of you to think about it. 
Your man in the office didn’t happen to 
say who this letter was going to?” 

“Oh, yes — I forgot. I asked him. It 
was addressed to a big cattleman over in 
Tonto County — Henry Brookins. I sup- 
pose you must know who he is.” 

“Yes. He runs the Big-B — Little-B 
brand. Brookins, eh? Well, I’m sure 
everything will be all right for our old 
friend up on the Gorge. I’m going up 
that way Thursday, and I’ll make it a 
point to stop in and see if there’s any- 
thing I can do for him. Another little 
dose, Davids ?” 

“I better not. I’ve got to be on duty 
for the mail when the evening stage 
comes in.” 

“Whatever you say.” Canning pulled 
out a bill-fold. “By the way, Davids, I 
wish you’d put a five-spot on that lottery 


THE PIT THAT HE DIGGED 


n 


for me. I think I’ll take another chance 
at it.” 

Davids stepped back. “You don’t need 
to — ” 

“Of course I don’t need to. But you 
don’t object to placing it for me? I’m 
feeling lucky today.” 

The clerk’s face was the color of beef- 
steak; his fevered cheek-bones flamed. 
But he took the five-dollar bill and 
stuffed it into his pocket hastily. “Much 
obliged, Mr. Canning. Anything I can 
do for you — ” 

“There isn’t anything, Davids, particu- 
larly. Only, as I’ve told you, I’m inter- 
ested in the people around here. And it’s 
a favor to our office to have you bring the 
mail over, when you’re coming this way. 
It saves Parsons going for it, and Par- 
sons is a pretty busy boy, you know. 
Come in any time. Good-by!” 

Davids hurried out, his feet making a 
shuffling sound on the floor. Smiling, 
Canning raised his voice. 

“Byington!” 

The black-haired man appeared. 

“He’s yelled for help,” Canning in- 
formed him. 

“Who has? Rittenhouse?” 

“So I’m told. Wrote to Henry Brook- 
ins, over at Whitehorse.” 

Byington sat down abruptly. “You 
know what that means, chief ! ” 

Canning’s smile was particularly 
pleased. “You look scared, By ! You’re 
not afraid Henry Brookins will come over 
here and bite you, are you?” 

“Nobody’s going to bite me, Canning. 
But Brookins would be a bad man to 
have on your trail. Or on ours 1 ” 

“Think so? Well, maybe. But — by 
the way, Byington, you’re the fellow who 
doesn’t believe in Providence, aren’t 
you ?” 

“Me? I don’t know what you’re talk- 
ing about now.” 

“This time Providence is playing my 
game. Do you read the State news in 
the Item ?” 

“Not much. You mean that third 
page?” 

“Yes. Throw me last week’s paper. 
It’s on that cabinet.” 

O BVIOUSLY puzzled, Byington found 
the required copy. Canning opened 
it wide — ran his eye down the columns 
on an inside page. 

“Here it is — listen : ‘Henry Brookins 
of the Big-B — Little-B Ranch on White 
Horse went to San Francisco on Sunday 
to attend the wedding of his son Robert 





Brookins to a Coast girl named Miss 
Angela Call. While away, the cattleman 
will attend a meeting of the Pacific Coast 
Stockmen’s Association, and likely go to 
Hollywood and other places to see the 
sights.’ The rest of the article is about 
the bride, but that would bore you, 
wouldn’t it, By?” 

His lieutenant had brightened consider- 
ably. “I guess I’ll have to take more 
stock in Providence after this, chief,” he 
said. “And read the papers, too. By the 
time Brookins gets that letter, we can cer- 
tainly scratch Basque Louie off the list, 
can’t we?” 

“Byington,” Homer Canning observed 
thoughtfully, “you have the worst habit 
of bringing up names I’ve ever known a 
man to have. Especially a man who 
might very well be charged with — well, 
half a dozen offences that even my in- 
fluence couldn’t get him clear of. I’ve 
spoken to you about it before, You’ll 
have to learn ! ” 

Byington grumbled : “If we can’t bring 
up names here in your office, we’re in a 
hell of a spot ! But anything you say.” 

Canning’s voice cracked like a whip, 
“There’s one thing I am going to say, By- 
ington! This business at your ranch 
office tomorrow is important. I don’t 
want any slip to be made. I’m at your 
place all afternoon and evening Wednes- 
day, August fourth. Are you sure yotl 
aren’t the least bit hazy about that ?” 

“Yes. I’ve got that.” Byington was 
considerably subdued. 

“You have? That’s good. Sometimes 
I get tired of men who growl at me and 
talk back ; I get most tired of men who 
mix names, dates, places and circum- 
stances. And you know what happens 
to a man when I get tired enough of him, 
don’t you? All right. Now get oUtl 
Right this minute I’m getting sick of see- 
ing you around ! ” 


78 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


CHAPTER II 

T HAT sultry August day when Uncle 
Ambrose Garbutt engaged in soliloquy 
concerning the likely projects of Homer 
Canning in Pascort was the third. The 
letter marked “Urjent,” thanks to the 
leisureliness of mails in far-flung regions, 
did not come to the hand of Bozeman 
Harter on the Big-B — Little-B Ranch un- 
til the fifth. But after it had come to 
that trusted and ready hand, there were 
no further delays in the orderly progres- 
sion of events that were appointed to 
occur. 

On the afternoon of the fifth Brookins’ 
hired men climbed the long Freestone 
grade, fox-trotted down an interminable 
stretch of gently falling canon and out 
across a basin, passed up and over the 
range; they rode into and out of half a 
dozen light showers of rain and saw evi- 
dences that they had just missed a heavier 
summer storm of the preceding night. 
They caught three hours’ sleep at a Sash 
Brand line cabin after midnight ; making 
such inquiries as were necessary, they 
came to the one-man ranch of Pomfret A. 
Rittenhouse on the eastern slope of the 
mountains about eleven o’clock of the 
next day, with unsweated horses, having 
covered the round hundred miles judi- 
ciously like men who, riding, may have to 
ride some more. 

They found the old log house unlocked 
but empty — no one in sight. 

That “Urjent” had sharpened their 
first-rate powers of observation. They 
stood appraising the house of the old man 
who, for one who was scared of nothing, 
had been scared. And the first thing they 
saw was that Pom Rittenhouse was above 
all things else orderly and precise. Each 
piece of crude old furniture had its place ; 
there was no clutter of tack anywhere 
about; on a center table of pine were 
stacked files of the Breeders’ Gazette and 
Aberdeen-Angus literature ; in a room at 
one side — marvelous to behold! — the 
bed was made up. But despite a bright 
sun without, the interior was dank. Rain 
had fallen down the straight stone chim- 
ney of the big fireplace, and dampened 
the old ashes on the hearth. 

“No fire last night,” Harter observed. 

D ADE had crossed to a door beyond. 

“The kitchen leanto looks like he’d 
started something he didn’t finish. Some 
dried potato peelings and a stew on the 
stove that had a long ways to go before 
it would be a stew.” 


“He’s got his working togs on him, be- 
cause here’s his mail-order visiting 
clothes hanging up.” 

“I’ll see maybe he’s asleep in the barn,” 
Dade said, and went out. 

He was gone ten minutes. “That’s 
funny ! ” he said, returning to lean against 
a hand-hewed door-post. 

“I’ve got a couple of funny ones my- 
self,” Harter averred. “What’s yours?” 

“I found a rangy rawhide horse loose 
out there, with the saddle and bridle still 
on.” 

“Still?” ^ 

“That’s what I said. He was trying to 
chew down red-oat hay over a long-spade 
bit, and he was considerably ga’nted.” 

“Were the cinches eased up any?” 

“They weren’t. I undressed the horse, 
and he was so tickled I thought he was 
going to kiss me.” Dade inhaled cigarette 
smoke. “What’s your funny ones?” 

“Here’s the first.” 

Harter passed over a sheet of letter 
paper ; it was dated August fourth — was 
unfinished and unsigned. But it was in 
the handwriting of the other letter. 

Frend Brookins 

Looks to me like you maynt get here so 

jest a line to let you no if anything throws 

me fix it up with a lower to sell the place 

and send proseeds to my girl Annie R. 

Low — 

Dade looked up from the reading. “Do 
you know any lawyers, Boze?” 

Harter frowned. “Maybe it isn’t that 
bad, Virge. Likely enough the old man 
has gone to town or was caught out on 
his range somewhere by a cloudburst last 
night or the night before.” 



THE PIT THAT HE DIGGED 


79 


“What did he go to town or out on his 
range on — his bicycle?” Dade snorted. 
“Would he mosey off anywheres and 
leave his riding-horse to starve to death 
in a barn full of good oat hay and rolled 
barley ? You’re wasting time ! ” 

“No, I’m stalling. He started to write 
that letter on the fourth. Do you know 
what day this is ?” 

“Me ? I never do know.” 

“I wasn’t sure till — Look here!” 

He led the way into the kitchen leanto 
Dade had discovered. There were dishes 
on the table in which dust had gathered 
— one in which a fly had chosen to die. 
Some one had interrupted himself or been 
interrupted in the process of preparing 
that stew already mentioned ; the firebox 
of the stove was empty, as though the pot 
of meat and vegetables had been put on 
and started, but had been neglected there- 
after. Through a half-open casement 
window, latched back with a long hook 
from the sill, heavy rains had driven — 
leaves and straw been blown. There was 
water still on the floor. 

“He started to write to Mr. Brook- 
ins along about the time he began to see 
supper in the distance. It would be sup- 
per, with stew coming up.” 

“Or suppose he finished up breakfast, 
say, and began on the stew and the letter 
when he’d done up his chores here,” Dade 
suggested. 

“His alarm clock stopped at two- 
twenty. How long would an alarm clock 
run without being helped along?” 

“Let’s see ! I wind the one by my bunk 
around eight or nine in the evening. If 
I forget it, she’ll pull through till next 
noon or so — ” 



widow cried. “Is — isn’t that my mortgage?” 


“Or say two-twenty on the second day. 
No, this was supper, but the clock wasn’t 
wound that night.” 

“You keep changing the subject,” Dade 
complained. “You started talking about 
what day this is.” 

“Oh, that!” Harter went to a pantry 
closet door and opened it. Suspended by 
a nail on the inner side was a square of 
cardboard lithographed in high colors — 
a sylvan scene presenting a finger-waved 
and manicured girl in a wisp of Grecian 
draperies dabbling one foot in a mirror- 
ing pool. This work of art commended 
to the observer the solid virtues of the 
Mesoro County Hardware and Imple- 
ment Co., Pascort — “The Small Town 
with the Big Back-country.” On the 
bottom was stapled a pad of square 
sheets of white, each bearing a single 
date and day-name. The one exposed 
was that of Thursday, March 5. 

“That can’t be right,” Dade said ; “the 
old man must’ve forgot to wind his cal- 
endar too, that day. Today’s Friday, I 
thought.” 

“It’s Friday, the sixth. And it looks 
like yesterday might have been a day 
when Mr. Rittenhouse could have used 
a friend.” Boze Harter’s eyes roved un- 
happily. “I still hope we’re wrong — 
Hello!” 

“Hello yourself,” Dade countered. 
“What’s those — lottery tickets?” 

H ARTER was thumbing a pad of loose 
leaves transfixed on a bill-hook in- 
side the closet. A glance showed what 
they were — the dated sheets from the 
calendar pad that had been torn off with 
the passing days. But what engaged 
Harter’s interest was the fact that on the 
reverse of each were scribbled memo- 
randa, a few in pen, mostly in pencil, in 
the handwriting of Rittenhouse. 

“And me — I spent twelve dollars and a 
half for a mail-order course in book- 
keeping and business methods ! ” he 
mourned. “Listen, Virge ! ‘Four veal to 
Vickers — thirty-eight seventy. Weather 
breeder today. Split stove-wood.’” 

“I’m waiting for the next installment,” 
Dade said, puzzled. “What’s the main 
idea?” 

“Here’s another one: ‘Writ Brookins 
but no answer yet. Some rain. H. C. 
sent Agarry out but he left pronto.’ ” He 
turned a third sheet. “‘Annie wants 
I should give up here and come out to 
Cal. but dam if I’ll — ■ Wait a shake! 
Oh! ‘But dam if I’ll be driv off by 
killers.’ ” 


80 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 



Dade leaned in. “It’s a — one of those 
things you write in every day ! ” 

“Diary. Hand-made diary.” Harter 
grasped the sheets and pulled them all 
from the hook. He spread them on the 
table — kicked a chair closer. “Every 
night the old man entered up his cash, 
and the main happenings, on that day’s 
page. Here’s Sunday, the first of March : 
‘Redded, up the haymow. Washt my shirt 
and turned off a chapter of Bible. Some 
rain.’ ” 

Dade read one: “Here’s June ninth, 
Boze : ‘Basque Louie was kilt, that’s sar- 
tain sure. Found tire-tracks of car turn- 
ing into his place. Them that live by the 
sword shall die by the sword. Whoso dig- 
geth a pit shall fall therein: and he that 
rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.” 

The cowboy scowled. “What’s that?” 

“A verse out of the Bible. The old man 
was pious — I’d forgotten that. Come 
on along through the rest of those you 
have, and see if you can find out any- 
thing more about this Basque Louie.” 

“Seems to me I’ve heard the name some 
place before.” 

“It was in the letter to Mr. Brookins. 
‘Got caught in one of Homer Canning’s 
long ropes over the killing of Basque 
Louie’ — it was something along that gen- 
eral line.” 

“Tally. If this man Canning makes 
big medicine in Mesoro County it might 
be such a thing as our old friend Mr. 
Rittenhouse had got himself a good rea- 
son to be scared.” Dade’s mouth was a 
straight line ; his eyes hardened. “I’m get- 
ting to sort of like the old gentleman ! ” 

T HE story they read was sketchy and 
full of breaks and gaps — but damn- 
ing. A sheepherder to whom Ritten- 
house had given his friendship — through 
gratitude, perhaps, since one calendar 


sheet carried the phrase, “for what he 
done when I was laid up;” a dispute with 
Canning over coveted springs; the mys- 
terious death of the Basque, Louie. A 
lackadaisical coroner’s inquisition; Rit- 
tenhouse’s indignation when the whole 
matter was officially dropped; the be- 
ginnings and pursuit of his own slow, 
patient, increasingly implacable inquiry, 
yielding results, one by one and step by 
step, because of his intimate knowledge 
of the country and its people, and of his 
lifetime of experience in reading signs. 

The scribbled entries began to deal 
with the initials H. C.j with various de- 
vices that had been tried to shake the 
old man from the chase — to get him 
to sell out and retire to distant parts; 
with his growing weariness (he recorded 
his seventy^ninth birthday on June 
twelfth), which still could not defeat his 
self-elected purpose. “Mighty nigh reddy 
to quit here,” he had written on July 
seventeenth, in a noticeably feeble hand, 
“but I aint agoin to be run off my own 
range by a scounderl.” 

Boze Harter dropped a fist to the table 
angrily. “If the old fool had only tele- 
graphed Mr. Brookins!” he exclaimed. 
“And look how close we came to riding in 
in time to be some good ! ” 

Virgil Dade rose, hitching up his belt 
and pulling his wide hat down. “I’d say 
we’ve done enough home-work, Boze. 
How about getting out and having a look 
for spoor?” 

“This is a big country to look for any- 
thing in, especially when you don’t know 
what you’re looking for.” 

“I know what I’ll look for!” 

“I’m just afraid we’ll find it. But 
there ought to be a neighbor or so around 
somewhere that could give us a lead.” 
The foreman took down the calendar, be- 
gan gathering the loose sheets neatly. 
“If somebody should happen to drop in 
here to see if he’d overlooked anything, 
he’d sure light a fire with Exhibit A. I 
think I’ll take care of it.” He glanced 
at the pile he had made, then began 
thumbing back through it. He became 
more grave. 

“What are you looking for now?” Dade 
inquired sharply. “ — The will or some- 
thing?” 

Harter put down the pack and straight- 
ened. “The fourth isn’t here, Virge!” 

“What fourth isn’t where?” 

“The page for Wednesday, the fourth.” 
He swore. “That sort of puts us afoot 
again. Maybe those troubles didn’t move 
in on Rittenhouse on the fifth, after all.” 


TME PIT THAT HE DIGGED 


81 


‘‘I don’t see that page gone means any- 
thing. He likely used the fourth to start 
the kitchen fire with.” 

“Oh, yes 1 ” Harter growled. “Or to wipe 
his razor on ! Here’s a man that keeps 
all his accounts and everything he wants 
to remember to tie to a date ; and then, 
when he’s rounding up a murder case and 
writing for help because he’s scared, he 
rips out a page to use for kindling ! You 
talk almost as foolish as you look, 
Virge!” 

“I was just sort of projecting around,” 
Dade apologized. “You’ve got to admit 
one guess is as good as another until — ” 

“Until we find that sheet for the fourth, 
if, as and when! Because, if, as and 
when, and while we’re guessing, my 
guess is that the page for day before yes- 
terday, Wednesday, August fourth, would 
just about put handcuffs on somebody 
who isn’t expecting it one little bit ! Let’s 
go looking for that spoor you were talk- 
ing about 1 ” 

R IDING into the place from the west, 
. the two Big-B — Little-B men had not 
touched the county road which, they now 
found, ran generally north and south, 
from higher regions of the mountains 
down toward a valley which they could 
see spread, out in the far distance and 
holding in its center a litter of children’s 
blocks that would, they surmised, be 
Pascort. To reach this road from Rit- 
tenhouse’s cabin, they descended sharply 
into a canon that, below the old rancher’s 
rickety bridge, fell away into the gorge 
that had given the region its name. 

It was now that they discovered how 
violent must have been the summer 
storm, the fringes and skirts of which had 
brushed them on their way. A brawling 
mountain stream tumbled below the 
bridge, but drift and debris piled in ir- 
regular heaps and sodden tangles higher 
than its level by several feet proved that 
a torrential rain, bursting abruptly and 
perhaps in an hour’s time, had sent a flood 
down through this canon, as perhaps 
through others to the east and west. More 
than their own country this was one, they 
knew, of occasional violent midsummer 
rains; such cloudbursts, freshets, would 
bring a draining stream up in half a 
night to flood height ; in shorter time the 
flood would pass and the creek return to 
its normal course. At the moment the 
sky was cloudless and a warming sun 
shining; but everywhere water still lay 
in pools ; the ground all about was heavy 
with moisture, and in climbing up the 


far bank, they came on an old tree that 
the unwonted rush of waters had 
wrenched loose and brought down. 

But they were not diverted by clima- 
tological data — not for the moment. What 
did divert them was the appearance, in 
the road they presently gained, of a 
glum man, slouching, surly, who strad- 
dled a fine well-made pinto horse, and 
who carried in its scabbard under his 
near rosadero a heavy carbine. This 
countryman pulled up when he observed 
the strangers, perhaps for courtesy’s sake, 
perhaps not. 

“Well, here’s somebody that’s tickled 
to see us ! ” Harter said, in a low voice, 
without turning his head. “That’s some- 
thing.” 

“I’d swap horses with him,” Dade re- 
plied similarly, “but not looks.” 

“Howdy, Mister,” Harter said, reining 
in. 

The man only grunted, eying both 
mounts and mounted. 

“Nice day? Think the storm’s over?” 

“I aint thinkin’!” 

“If it isn’t too much to ask, do you 
live around here?” 

“Who wants to know ?” 

Harter grinned disarmingly. “That’s 
a fair question. We’re from over west of 
the mountains, scouting for feeders. My 
name’s Harter, and this handicap I carry 
is Virge Dade.” 

“Hell of a country to scout for feeders 
in,” the other man growled. “Anyhows, 
we fat our own feeders up this' way.” 

“We heard something about a man 
named Rittenhouse that might have a 
bunch of cross-bred Aberdeens. But he 
isn’t home. We rode by there.” 

“Yeah?” 

V IRGIL tried his hand. “You don’t 
happen to own the full brother of 
that horse you’re riding, do you, neigh- 
bor? If you do, I’d be in the market.” 

The appraisal the cowboy was given 
would have abashed a more sensitive 
youth— angered a quick-tempered one. 
Dade gave no sign of being conscious of it. 
He could be guileless, Virge could. 

“We ride our own colts up this way 
too,” the native said. “Got any more 
fool questions?” 

‘ “If you’d give us an idea where we 
might find this Mr. Rittenhouse — ” 
Harter began. 

With something like ferocity the man 
cut him short. “1 got plenty to do with- 
out keeping tabs on Pom Rittenhouse; 
but if I knowed where he was at, I 


82 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


wouldn’t tell you.” His right hand fell 
carelessly to the stock of his sheathed 
rifle, and he spat into a wild lilac bush. 
“I’ve knowed outsiders to get plumb lost 
here in these hills — especially the kind 
that comes into a good summer grass 
country to buy feeders in August.” 

His well-knit pinto went into sudden 
action, narrowly missed collision with 
Dade’s dusty gray, and carried its surly 
rider down-canon at a reaching lope. 
Harter laughed ruefully. 

“Those feeders were a mistake,” he 
admitted. “But I always was a second- 
rate liar ! ” 

“You better have told him you were 
looking for a two-bit piece you dropped 
along here summer before last, Boze. 
I guess I’ll take over the perjury de- 
partment, for a change.” 

“What’s that man so edgy about Rit- 
tenhouse for, do you suppose?” 

Dade grinned. “Sure opened up wide, 
didn’t he? Told you about everything 
you’d want to know. When it comes to 
guessing him, I pass this round. You 
bet!” 

“I’m not betting anything except that 
this Pascort Big Noise, Canning, prob- 
ably has friends like him. But let’s give 
the neighbors another chance — we might 
find a human being, by looking close!” 

“There’s chimney-smoke off to the 
right,” Dade said a little later. 

“Our talkative friend came from the 
left ; maybe we better swing off and see 
if there’s a house hitched to the chim- 
ney where that smoke comes from.” 

T HEY came, by a winding road cut 
through second-growth timber, to a 
clearing that ran something like thirty 
dogs to the acre. The bedlam set Harter’s 
horse to mincing, and brought to the door 
of the small unpainted house ahead a 
tall, gangling woman in a cotton dress 
and a man’s boots. 

“Hi, Rowdy ! Bess ! The hull of you 
shet up!” Her shrill voice calmed the 
turbulent reception committee, the older 
parties returning to the shade, the young- 
sters closing in around to sniff and criti- 
cize. “Howdy, boys!” the lady of the 
house called. “Them dogs won’t bite. 
Throw down and light ! ” 

Thus colloquially handed the keys to 
the place, the strangers grounded their 
reins and sat on the edge of the dilapi- 
dated porch before the house. Dade took 
the lead, as he could with the ladies ; he 
became chummy with Mrs. Harvey Bass, 
made conversation about dogs and hunt- 


ing, exchanged grave opinions about the 
weather — began to dilate on the prophet- 
ic gifts of an uncle of his, of whom Harter 
had never heard before, whose genius in 
foretelling everything from protracted 
droughts to hailstorms had been attribu- 
ted by his friends to the mercurial sensi- 
tiveness of one knee, which had an old 
bullet in it. 

“Do you happen to know Mr. Ritten- 
house, that lives below you here?” the 
cowboy inquired presently. 

“Shore. I know Pom. What about 
him?” 

“Uncle Bill Randolph, — the one I was 
telling you about, — he asked me if I ever 
was up this way, to drop by and say hello 
to Rittenhouse for him. But we couldn’t 
find him around.” 

“Where’d your uncle know him?” 

“I’m not sure. I think it was out on 
the Coast some place.” 

“Maybe. Pom’s got a daughter in 
Long Beach that’s always after him to 
quit ranching and come and live with 
them. He’s been for a visit once or 
twice.” 

“That’s the place — Long Beach. Have 
you seen the old man around the last day 
or so?” 

Harter, seeing that Virge Dade’s Un- 
cle Bill Randolph was more productive 
of easy converse than beef feeders, sat 
back out of it, whittling a match-stick 
painstakingly, and appearing to note the 
points of a hound pup at his feet. 

“I saw him yesterday. He was out 
at his corrals working some young stock. 
With Homer Canning,” said Mrs. Bass. 

Dade, sitting back on his heels, stared 
with open mouth. His foreman hastily 
picked up the tale. 

“Yesterday, eh ? That was Thursday.” 

“Was it? Tuesday, Harve had one 
of his spells, and Wednesday — That’s 
right. Wednesday there was a cloud- 
burst up in the pinnacles that like to 
washed us away, down here. Yesterday 
was Thursday, all right.” 

“Who did you say was with Ritten- 
house ?” 

“Homer Canning.” 

“Is he a buyer, or — ” 

“Canning?” She looked from one to 
the other of them sharply. “You boys 
must be strangers here, for sartain. Ho- 
mer Canning is jest about the hull of 
Mesoro County. Runs a bank and owns 
lands, and buys and sells, and sort of 
bosses things over at the county seat.” 

An old hound rose suddenly from be- 
side the house, baying a deep-voiced 


THE PIT THAT HE DIGGED 


83 


alarm ; the tribe leaped into action. As 
suddenly they changed their tune, looking 
ashamed of themselves, and a shabby 
little man rode out of the timber, mount- 
ed on a woebegone mule. 

“There’s Harve,” Mrs. Bass said. 
“You boys better stay and eat a bite.” 
She raised her voice. “You dogs hush 
up, will you? A body can’t hear himself 
think!” 

I T was an hour later that the two inquir- 
ing minds rode southward, replete with 
food, the taste of good cider still in their 
mouths, and their bafflement complete. 

“I’m sunk clean to the top of my high 
boots, Boze,” Virge said gloomily. 
“Guess we might as well burn up that 
calendar and start from the weanin’ age 
again ! ” 

Harter nodded. “I wish young Bob 
Brookins had picked Christmas to get 
married on! What this organization 
needs right now is some brains.” 

“I roped me one thing, though,” Virge 
volunteered. 

“We need it.” 

“Our friend Harve is too henpecked 
to speak out in meeting much, but he 
certainly was caught up short on the 
dally when his wife mentioned seeing 
Canning working stock with Rittenhouse 
yesterday.” 

“The Basses know more than they 
were telling about old Mr. Rittenhouse, 
Virge. Harve started to make a talk 
about that sheepherder friend of the old 
man’s, till she slowed him down.” 

“He couldn’t jest get the idea of Rit- 
tenhouse even as much as selling a head 
of veal to Canning,” Dade observed. He 
laughed. “I got another thing too — a 
nice, cheerful one. What they had to 
say about the man on the pinto horse — 
Gotch.” 

“One of Canning’s side-kickers. Yes.” 
Harter grinned. “I wonder if Gotch can 
shoot straight with that carbine he car- 
ries.” 

They decided to push for Pascort, to 
see what luck might do for them there. 
They rode thoughtfully, feeling them- 
selves, beyond their depths in a welter of 
contradictory and always vague conjec- 
turings. Their way led them presently 
almost along the rim of the gorge through 
which the mountain creek fell away; 
turning off the road to view it, each, 
without mentioning the fact, began to 
think that here would be a place where 
almost anything could be lost beyond 
easy finding. So they watched closely, 



riding near the precipitous edge — occa- 
sionally dismounting to peer down. 

They looked down at all times thirty, 
forty, at places seventy or eighty feet, 
to where the stream, still muddy from 
Wednesday night’s freshet, tumbled and 
shouted rowdily. Drift, scored banks, 
damp cuts and fresh slides showed clear- 
ly how high that short-lived flood had 
risen. But that had been on the night 
of the fourth; and on Thursday, the 
fifth, Mrs. Bass had seen — 

Dade reined in sharply — swore. 

Boze Harter, riding ahead, pulled up. 

“Saddle-galled?” he inquired mildly, 
shifting to glance back. 

His top-hand gestured ; Harter looked 
across the Gorge and downstream. 

On a shelf of rock fifteen or twenty 
feet above the stream, and caught in the 
twisted roots of a stubborn dwarfed ju- 
niper, was the body of an old man that 
had been tossed up capriciously like any 
other random piece of drift by the tor- 
rent that had come and gone again in 
one night. 

“I’ll stay here,” Boze Harter said. 
“You go back to Bass’ for help. Pascort 
will have to wait.” 


CHAPTER III 

H omer Canning frowned a little as 
he glanced through the papers that 
shrinking Mrs. Shurtleff had taken from 
her old-fashioned reticule. He was in a 
very complacent mood, feeling a crisis 
passed and a shadow lifted from his 
mind ; he was moved to be expansive — 
to merit anew the regard in which he was 
held by most of the humbler people of 
Pascort Valley. But he liked to drama- 
tize these occasional incidents, and his 
frown was meant to prolong the widow’s 
suspense. 


84 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


It accomplished that purpose, for si- 
lent tears welled in her faded eyes. 
Canning cleared his throat, glanced at a 
wall calendar. 

“The sixth. Your loan is due tomor- 
row, then, Mrs. Shurtleff.” 

“Yes.” She wiped the tears away 
hastily. “I can see I better not have 
come, Mr. Canning. And I want you to 
know that I don’t feel hard toward you, 
because you can’t do anything. I just 
thought there might be some way — ” 

“I’m sorry, but the banking law — ” 

“I s’posed maybe your bank, sort of 
belonging to you, as folks say it does, 
was different.” 

“A private bank has to obey the law.” 

“Yes, likely it does.” She rose. “Well, 
Lawyer Gaines told me I can stay in the 
house thirty days. That’s true, isn’t it ?” 

“I think that’s the law.” And Canning 
smiled. “You see, Mrs. Shurtleff, the 
person who owes money has some rights, 
after all.” He took up a paper from his 
desk and began tearing it in two ab- 
stractedly. “And I hope things may im- 
prove for you — ” 

“Mr. Canning!” the widow cried. 
“Look what you’re doing ! Is — isn’t that 
my mortgage ?” 

T HE smiling man looked down. 

“Hm-m-m ! So it is ! Well, isn’t that 
too bad?” He turned the halved sheets 
of the document in his hands, tore them 
across again and dropped them into his 
wastepaper basket. “There! And by 
the way, I just discover that my office 
has paid your taxes for this year on the 
place. You’d better take this receipt 
along, in case there’s any question later.” 
He stood up, towering above the stunned 
little woman. He put out a hand — took 
hers. “Now, now!” he said. “Every- 
thing’s going to be all right. If there’s 
anything we can do for you here — ” 

His door opened, and the young clerk 
appeared, 

“Telephone, Mr. Canning.” 

“Who is it?” 

“Talmadge.” 

“All right. Put him on.” His manner 
changed. “This is very important, Mrs. 
Shurtleff. Come in again some time.” 
He almost hurried her from the office, 
then picked up the receiver. 

“This is Canning! . . . What in hell 
ails you, Tally ? Can’t you talk ?” Aft- 
er that challenge he listened for some 
moments; his face did not change, but 
his voice became quiet — tense. “Two of 
them, eh? You don’t know who they 


are? ... All right. Sit tight there, and 
let me know what’s found out. ... No ! 
I want you there ! Good-by ! ” He hung 
up the telephone, turned : “—Byington ! " 

The black-haired man appeared from 
beyond an inner door that stood ajar. 

“What’s up ?” 

“That was Talmadge, calling from the 
sheriff’s office. The body was found in 
the Gorge by a couple of strange cow- 
punchers and Harve Bass.” 

“Bass? That’s not so good.” 

“You telling me? Bass phoned in 
from Bain’s store, and the coroner and 
Sheriff have gone up. And Waltz!” 

Byington whistled softly. 

His chief glared at him. “If I’d had 
my way about it, that upstart wouldn’t 
have been appointed. I told you then — ” 

“Are you blaming me because Rod 
Waltz is assistant district attorney?” 
Byington interrupted angrily. “I was in 
Washington — ” 

“Oh, shut up ! ” Canning rose and be- 
gan to pace the floor. “What I want to 
know is who those two cowboys are, and 
what they were doing at the Gorge.” 

“Wait a minute, Canning. Maybe 
that’s what Gotch was babbling about.” 

“Sam Gotch ?” 

“He rode into town around three 
o’clock, but he had to stop and see a man, 
and he’s as drunk as a fiddler.” 

“Where is he now ?” 

“In your back room, sleeping it off.” 

“Get him in here ! ” 

Grumbling under his breath, Byington 
hurried out; he returned presently with 
a loose-jointed, slouching man who bore 
himself truculently. 

“What the hell d’you mean, draggin’ 
a fellow roun’ thisaway, Can’n’ ? Got flea 
to put in y’r ear, but aint goin’ to take 
no slack — ” 

Canning, striding to and fro, wheeled 
on the drunken mountaineer savagely. 
“Close your trap, Gotch ! What did you 
come here to tell me?” 

Gotch wagged his head stubbornly. 
“That aint no way to talk, Can’n’! I’m 
mean when I’m trod on — wha’s more, 
I’m sick o’ bein’ kicked roun’!” He 
fumbled for the revolver that hung low 
at his hip. 

I NSTANTLY Canning was on him, slap- 
ping his head from side to side with 
stinging, open-hand blows, forcing him 
to retreat. Gotch swore, snarled — struck 
a chair with the backs of his knees and 
collapsed into it. Canning slapped him 
once more, then stepped away. 


THE PIT THAT HE DIGGED 


85 


“Now talk 1 ” he ordered curtly. “And 
talk fast!” 

“ ’S all right, Can’n’ — Mister Canning. 
I’m frien’ — you know that. Come to 
town to tell you — two punchers up to 
the Gorge tryin’ fin’ ol’ Ritten’ouse ! ” 
He laughed foolishly. “Di’n’t get no 
place with me ! ” 

“When did you see them?” 

“ ’Smornin’. They was ridin’ out fr’m 
ol’ man’s. I tol’ ’em make ’emselves 
scarce.” 

“Go on.” 

“Damn’ fools stuck roun’. They was 
to Bass’ place. You said keep eye peeled 
f’r anybody nosin’ roun’. So I rid in.” 

“Did you know these two riders?” 

“Never seed ’em ’fore. Youngish. 
Ridin’ stale hosses.” 

“I don’t suppose you had sense enough 
to notice their cavvy brand.” 

“Hell I didn’t ! ” Gotch winked at his 
interlocutor. “I’m shmart man, I am!” 

“Too smart — or not smart enough! 
What about the horse brands?” 

“Kid was ridin’ flea-bit gray. Jes’ 
kid. Bran’ on foreshoulder, his gray 
was. Double B.” 

B YINGTON drew in his breath sibi- 
lantly. Canning crossed to his desk 
and sat down. 

“Two B’s? You sure of that, Gotch?” 
“Gimme penshil.” The man pulled 
himself together and walked unsteadily 
to the desk. Canning threw him a pencil 
and a memo pad, but he was paying very 
little heed to his courier now. Gotch 
wet the pencil on his tongue — laborious- 
ly drew a capital B and then a small 
letter b. “Tha’s it. Fore-shoulder — 
low, nigh side. I’m shmart, Can’n’, 
know that?” Gotch laughed his foolish 
laugh again. 

“Take him away, By ! ” Canning said. 
“Come on, smart man!” the lieutenant 
said. Gotch protested that he wanted to 
have one little drink with his old friend 
Canning, but was finally ejected by the 
lithe Byington, more agile and competent 
than he appeared. Canning rose from 
his desk and began pacing the floor 
again. Unwontedly he felt his nerve 
shaken by the news Ford Talmadge, a 
deputy under Sheriff Grossbeck and 
heavily obligated to Canning, had tele- 
phoned him. How was one to account 
for the presence at the Gorge of two 
Big-B — Little- B riders? If old Brook- 
ins had returned, — if he had not gone to 
the Coast at all, — he would have come 
himself. Perhaps he had come and was 




up there somewhere now, nosing around, 
asking questions, ingratiating himself 
with those troublesome Basses! Two of 
Brookins’ cowboys, brought there by 
chance or sent by a wire from their 
owner in San Francisco, would not find 
anything. There was, Canning told him- 
self, nothing to find. The body: yes. 
But finding the body would only — 

Suddenly he stopped dead. He stood 
examining one forefinger intently for a 
long minute; Byington came on him so 
occupied. 

“I put the damned fool to bed,” the 
lieutenant said. “It’s not so good for 
you — for any of us! If — ” 

Canning wheeled on him. “Those two 
cowboys evidently killed old Ritten- 
house,” he said, with such conviction 
that for a moment he took Byington off 
his guard. “They’ve got to be rounded 
up!” 

“The two cowboys? Oh, they killed 
him?” Byington tried to get the impli- 
cations. “It’s O.K. by me, Canning. 
But what would they kill him for? I 
mean, there’d have to be some reason!” 

“For twenty-two hundred dollars in 
currency.” Seeing Byington still at a 
loss, Canning added: “The amount I 
paid the old man yesterday for his 
breeding stock.” 

Byington laughed aloud. “By God, 
Canning, you think clear through, don’t 
you?” he chuckled. 

C ANNING scowled irascibly. “Let 
that part of it go! Your job is to 
get those two Brookins men corralled.” 
He stepped to his desk and picked up 
the telephone. 

“Get me the Highline Ranch ! ” 

“I thought of that,” Byington said 
superfluously. “Hackett could take two 
or three men across to the Gorge; it’s 
only seven or eight miles by the horse 
trail.” 

“You let me do a little thinking, By- 
ington! . . . Hello! Hackett? . . . Tele- 
phone over to Bain’s or some of the 


86 


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neighbors on the Gorge side, and find 
out what you can about a killing up 
there. . . . Old man Rittenhouse. . . . 
Wait a minute! You can cry in your 
milk in the morning! I’m interested, 
because I bought Rittenhouse’s stock yes- 
terday. I’m going to put them on the 
Highline. . . . That’s right; I’ll be up 
tomorrow or the next day, and you can 
ride over and take them back with you 
. . . . We’ll go into that later. By the 
way, Hackett, if you cross the trail of a 
couple of strange cow-punchers up 
around the Gorge — . . . What’s that? 
... He didn’t know them, or where they 
were from?” He listened intently for 
a moment. “All right ! Call me back.” 

He hung up. He had control of his 
jangled nerves now. 

“One of our Highline riders saw those 
two strangers an hour or so ago, coming 
this way, Byington,” he said. “Get out 
and spread your men around town to 
watch for them. Don’t crowd them un- 
less they begin to talk too much ; if you 
handle it right, they’ll be telling every- 
thing they know after the second drink; 
then we can decide which way to jump.” 

“Probably the Sheriff and Waltz will 
drive through town on their way back 
to Dorrance this evening,” Byington sug- 
gested. 

“That’s a thought. Well, all the more 
reason for getting these two punchers 
cooled off before we turn them over to 
Grossbeck.” 

“And Waltz ! ” Byington added, a little 
maliciously. 

“Damn you, Byington,” Canning cried, 
instantly angered, “you’ll give me too 
much of your lip one of these days ! Do 
you suppose I’m overlooking Waltz? 
I’m certainly not worrying about a pair 
of lunkhead cow-hands ! And don’t grin 
at me again!” He paused, drew a deep 
breath, relaxed. “All right, that’s all. 
Just give me a chance to have a talk 
with Henry Brookins’ riders ; I might be 
able to do something for them, seeing 
that they’re strangers in Pascort. I’ll 
be here in the office — till morning, if 
necessary.” 

Byington went out by a back way. 
Canning, with steady fingers, penciled a 
memorandum, put it in a billfold he 
carried; then he took up the telephone 
once more and called the cashier of his 
private bank. 

“Willis ? Send me up twenty-two hun- 
dred, right away; you can charge it to 
the Highline account. ... It doesn’t 
matter — fifties will do. That’s all.” 


CHAPTER IV 

B ozeman Harter and Dade were not 
picture-book cowboys ; except for 
their boots, which undistinguished over- 
alls covered, and the high-peaked, wide- 
brimmed Texas-style hat that Dade wore 
because he had practically been born with 
one on, they should have attracted no 
attention anywhere in the Southwest. 

And yet, increasingly, they found 
themselves attracting attention in the lit- 
tle town of Pascort. At nine o’clock in 
the evening they entered Zack’s Place, 
which seemed to be the gathering-point 
for the region ; though they minded their 
own business and took up inconspicuous 
places at the far end of the bar, near 
where it bent back to join the wall, they 
knew themselves to be observed and 
commented upon. 

“It’s my fatal beauty, I reckon, Boze,” 
Virge opined, when the foreman men- 
tioned the fact. “There’s just something 
about me — ” 

“Your fatal beauty may live up to its 
name,” Harter interrupted. “We’ve been 
in town maybe two hours, but somebody 
has had time to wonder how long we’d 
better be allowed to stay.” 

Dade nodded. “This man Canning 
sure raises a lot of dust in his own home 
town, Boze. And they all cover up 
when he’s named. Take that fat man at 
the hotel — what was his name?” 

“Uncle Ambrose somebody. Even he 
knew where Canning was on the fourth.” 

“And Canning certainly told the world 
he was at Rittenhouse’s yesterday and 
had bought him out.” Dade looked into 



Dade called out, “Howdy, Mr. Ritten- 
house!” The old man spun about; he 
squalled: “Look-a here, dtnnn you — 


THE PIT THAT HE DIGGED 


87 


his empty glass. “Only thing I wouldn’t 
like about those alibis, if they were mine, 
is they’re polished up too high.” 

“I’m betting my stack on that young 
district attorney, Virge. Bass thought 
the Sheriff might wabble.” 

“He won’t with Waltz riding herd on 
him. But Canning wouldn’t need to get 
bail if he was hauled up for breaking a 
window — not in this county. Anybody 
could see that.” 

“He’ll drive a herd over the tracks as 
fast as they’re pointed out,” Harter said. 
“I wish we had found that calendar sheet 
for the fourth ; but even without it, may- 
be Waltz can make a case.” He ordered 
another drink, and the bartender reached 
for the bar whisky. A bottle and two 

! 'lasses he flipped toward them dextrous- 
y, so that they came to rest at Dade’s 
elbow. 

The cowboy, pouring, said ruefully: 
“Hang-take that Mrs. Bass, anyhow. If 
she hadn’t seen Rittenhouse yesterday — ” 
“She didn’t, Virge. But what did she 
see ? If she was a drinking woman, now 
— Well, I pass that one ! ” 

H IS eyes were on a group of five or six 
men playing cards negligently at one 
side of the room. Three of them he had 
seen about town before : one of them was 
a black-eyed man people called Bying- 
ton, with a respect that might have been 
tinged with fear; this person’s manners 
and clothes made him seem out of place 
in a frontier town ; yet he was quite at 
home. A second was a very dark Mexi- 
can, young and lithe; another a tall, 
cadaverous gentleman, doubly weaponed, 


who wet his lips frequently and who had 
more than once glanced their way since 
they had come in. The other players 
were nondescripts, but none of them 
seemed very deeply engrossed in their 
game. 

Still looking at them, Boze Harter 
said: “I wish I hadn’t dragged you into 
this business, Virge. It’s my job, and — ” 

“Dragged?” Dade laughed. “I haven’t 
noticed losing any hide ! ” He looked his 
companion in the eye. “We’ve sided 
each other before now, Boze, and I don’t 
like you saying dragged!” 

“All right, Virge. Much obliged.” 

An elderly cow-man, mellowed by the 
juice of the grape or of the sour-mash 
vat, left the bar halfway down its ample 
length and started toward the players’ 
table. Dade, very “noticing,” observed 
him. Then he set down his glass. 

“Maybe I’ve been sort of underfoot up 
to now, Boze,” he remarked. “But it 
looks to me like here’s a play I can make 
alone.” 

Without explanation he started away 
from the bar — walked quickly across the 
open floor, came up behind the mellow 
old cow-man just weaving to a stop be- 
hind a player’s chair. In a voice that 
could be heard distinctly the length of 
the room, Dade called out, cheerfully, 
“Howdy, Mr. Rittenhouse ! ” and slapped 
the old man on the back. 

Harter, uncomprehending, saw the 
Mexican come to his feet, upsetting his 
chair; he saw the black-eyed man, By- 
ington, rise with a silver-headed cane in 
one hand. The others twisted around 
and stared. As for the old man Dade 



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had saluted, he had spun about, with a 
face blanched of all color; he squalled: 

“Look-a here, damn you — ” 

But in that moment Harter, even from 
where he stood, had seen what Dade had 
seen. The bucking belt the old man 
wore bore traces, faintly outlined but 
unmistakable, of the initials P.R. 

Meantime Dade had stepped back, as 
though to cover his confusion. “My 
mistake, Mister 1 I guess I owe you a 
drink!” 

It seemed to Harter that the man they 
called Byington gave a signal ; a bartend- 
er near the front of the place turned 
and lifted a hand. 

Instantly the saloon lights went out 
— the place was plunged into total dark- 
ness. There came exclamations, startled 
oaths, the sounds of scraping feet — 
chairs shoved back. Harter sprang into 
the sheltered curve of the bar, his gun 
in his hand, but it was useless to him. 
He was crowded upon by several men — 
struck blindingly on the side of the head. 

W HEN a shock of cold water on face 
and chest revived him, he was being 
half-carried through the night along a 
deserted alleyway, and his left wrist and 
hand seemed paralyzed. He made out 
that Virge Dade, competently propelled 
and helpless, was in advance. 

Harter shook his head to clear it, with 
slight success. He tried to bring his 
mind to a focus, but it played tricks on 
him. For instance, he seemed to re- 
member that old Pom Rittenhouse had 
been in the saloon, slightly the worse for 
liquor, and that Virgil Dade had hailed 
him familiarly, to the great surprise of 
bystanders. Plainly an hallucination 1 
The party turned into a rear entrance, 
hastened down a long hall, climbed stairs. 
There was another corridor vaguely at 
the top, then a heavy door that was 
opened from within, then a low room, 
dimly lighted, where what seemed to be 
substantial walls were plain and un- 
adorned, where there was only a sparse 
complement of dilapidated furniture, 
and where the windows, small and high 
in stone embrasures, were adequately 


barred. The Mexican took up a place 
against a far door; the cadaverous man 
stood before the door through which they 
had entered: both had guns in their 
hands. There were other men present, 
but all of them waited on the big, hand- 
some, well-dressed personage who had 
strolled in with Byington from the Mexi- 
can’s door, and who now seated himself 
on the edge of the battered desk against 
one wall. 

“My name is Canning,” he said mildly, 
looking from Harter to Dade and back. 
“What seems to be your trouble, boys?” 

“That’s what we’d like to know, Mr. 
Canning,” Virgil Dade answered, dulling 
his voice. “I mistook a man in a saloon 
for another man, and then the ceiling 
fell on us.” 

The elderly cow-man spoke up angrily. 
“He clumped me on the back and says 
to me — ” 

Byington interrupted, quickly though 
casually: “Shut up, Pastor. Gotch, tell 
Mr. Canning where you saw these two 
men first.” 

Harter was thinking more clearly now. 
He noticed that the old gentleman called 
Pastor had removed his kidney-belt — re- 
called fairly clearly what had happened, 
and how. The hulking man Byington 
had called on was the one they had met, 
mounted on a good pinto horse, at the 
Gorge. 

“They was up our way,” Gotch was 
growling. “Said they was lookin’ for 
feeders at Rittenhouse’s.” He laughed 
in ugly fashion. “I knowed that was a 
lie, and told ’em so. This afternoon they 
was all over the country — down in the 
Gorge and up to Bass’ — ” 

Byington interrupted. “Rittenhouse 
was murdered,” he said abruptly. “But 
you’ve heard that, Mr. Canning.” 

Canning raised his eyebrows. “Then 
he didn’t fall into the Gorge?” 

“He didn’t fall in,” Byington said, 
with a slight sneer. . 

“I see.” Canning gave his lieutenant 
a cold look, that Byington seemed to re- 
turn. The big man said calmly then : “Well, 
I’m still in the dark about these boys.” 

“Gotch told me he’d seen them hang- 
ing around Rittenhouse’s today,” Bying- 
ton said. “So when they rode into town 
this evening, I looked them over. I had 
Pete Rolls with me, because he’s a dep- 
uty sheriff.” He gestured slightly to- 
ward the tall, square man who guarded 
one door, and Rolls nodded. 

“Where did you catch up with them ?” 
Canning asked. 


THE PIT THAT HE DIGGED 


89 


“I kept an eye on them all evening. 
But just now in Zack’s Place the kid 
ave their hand away; I thought we’d 
etter bring them in for safekeeping.” 

B OZE HARTER straightened a little in 
the chair into which he had dropped 
on entering. There was beginning to be 
a new significance in what was said by 
these cold-eyed men, in this secluded 
room, to which only faint sounds came 
from without. He glanced at Dade, who 
was standing on the balls of his feet, 
watchful and ready; and he shook his 
head at him slightly. 

Canning said : “What happened at 
Zack’s, Byington?” 

“This boy pretended to recognize Dad 
Pastor as Rittenhouse. Some cockeyed 
notion of building up an alibi, I sup- 
pose.” 

“Cockeyed, maybe,” Virge Dade ex- 
ploded, “ — but it was to spoil an alibi, 
Mister 1 ” 

“Keep your stirrups, Virge!” Harter 
said sharply. “Let them do the talk- 
ing!” 

Canning smiled. “That’s good advice, 
Virge, if that's your name.” He turned 
to Harter. “Yours is?” 

“I’m Bozeman Harter.” 

“Well, Harter, I’ve had dealings with 
old Pom Rittenhouse; as far as I know, 
he was a respectable, honest old man. 
In fact, I was up there yesterday — ” He 
stopped, stared a moment, slapped his 
leg. “Byington,” he exclaimed, “have 
you searched these boys?” 

Byington said: “We took their guns.” 
“Is that all they had on them ?” 
“W-well — ” Byington replied slowly, 
“no.” He reached into a coat pocket 
and pulled out a sheaf of double bank- 
notes. “I took these off that man who 
calls himself Harter. I was going to 
turn them over to the Sheriff, but I’d 
rather you’d take care of them till he 
gets here, Canning.” 

“How much is there there?” 

“Around twenty-five hundred dollars.” 
Canning said, as though to himself: 
“I paid Rittenhouse twenty-two hundred 
yesterday. In bills, because he didn’t 
have any use for checks.” 

Harter, steadying Virge Dade with his 
voice, inquired casually : “Were you buy- 
ing stock, Canning?” 

Canning replied at once: “The old 
man’s breeding line. Aberdeen-Angus.” 
He took a billfold from his pocket. “I 
haven’t even had time to put the bill-of- 
sale into the safe. Here it is.” 



“You bought cheap,” Harter said. 
“You must be a good trader.” 

Old Dad Pastor spoke up, angrily: 
“Pom Rittenhouse was a friend o’ 
mine!” he cried. “My idear is to take 
these two fellers out and string ’em up ! ” 

The Mexican at his door laughed — 
spoke for the first time. “Eef per’aps 
they don’ tries to r-run awhay!” 

“Or put up a fight in here!” Deputy 
Sheriff Pete Rolls suggested. 

These veiled threats appeared to in- 
fect Canning with their indignation. He 
stood up, glowering at the two outsiders. 
“What in hell kind of county did you 
think this was, that would let you ride 
in, shoot an old man down, dump his 
body into the Gorge and rifle his house?” 
He turned to Byington, his voice rising. 
“Give back their guns, By! If they 
want a chance to get clear, we’ll give it 
to them! How about it, Doys?” 

A snarling chorus arose. The Mexican 
side-stepped like a cat, to improve his 
position. Pastor, Rolls and Sam Gotch 
shifted their weight ; they were all ready 
with drawn guns now. 

“Pom Rittenhouse never did nobody 
no harm!” Gotch croaked. “Give ’em 
their guns, Byington — we’ll see how far 
they get ! ” 

Byington stepped to the desk on which 
Canning had leaned, and picked up two 
revolvers. Boze Harter checked him. 

“We don’t want our guns, Byington,” 
he said. He spoke so quietly that the 
shuffling and muttering of the gunmen 
had to be stilled before they all heard him 
add : “Make it another murder, and .let 
it go at that.” 

Canning cried furiously: “We’d save 
Mesoro County the expense ! Don’t 
talk about murder here, you two!” 

Harter said : “I am talking about mur- 
der, Canning. I’m talking about the 
murder of a sheepherder called Basque 
Louie by this Mexican of yours, on your 
orders, because he owned some springs 
you wanted up in the hills.” 

The Mexican snarled an oath — spoke 
to Canning in Spanish. But Canning cut 
him short. “Close up, Aguerre!” He 
seated himself on the desk and spoke 


90 


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with a sudden quiet, cold deliberation. 
“So you’re making charges now, eh? 
Have you any more ?” 

“Enough ! I’m ready to talk about the 
murder of old Mr. Rittenhouse because 
he knew too much about the killing of the 
sheepherder and couldn’t be bought off or 
bluffed out or scared away, though you 
tried all three!” He put up a hand. 
“Wait a minute, Canning ! I’m not talk- 
ing through my hat, either. At Harve 
Bass’ place, up in the Gorge, we turned 
over to the officers the evidence you over- 
looked Wednesday night, when you drove 
up there and killed the old man and 
dumped his body into the Gorge to make 
it look like he’d been drowned. We 
found his horse in his barn, still saddled 
and bridled, the way you left him to help 
your story out.” 

C ANNING took this all quietly : it was 
difficult to tell from his blank face 
whether he was dumfounded or was bid- 
ing his time. Byington, glib and cold- 
blooded, offered an interjection. 

“Your story is the one that leaks, 
Harter,” he said with a laugh. “Wednes- 
day Mr. Canning was with me at my 
ranch down — ” 

“Near Willows,” Harter interrupted. 
“All afternoon, and in the evening you 
had some well-known people in to play 
cards.” It was his turn to laugh. “Mr. 
Byington, whoever you are and however 
you come into the picture, I would have 
said you’d be too smart to pull that one. 
Because there were plenty of people to 
do it for you.” 

“What do you mean ?” Canning cut in. 
“I mean that when a Canning man 
drags up that alibi, it shows how care- 
fully it was framed.” 

Canning’s face was white now, but it 
seemed to be from rage. He spoke in 
a hard, loud tone. “You won’t live to 
drag my name into this business to 
save your own necks — either of you!” 
he cried. “I went up to Rittenhouse’s 
Thursday — the day after I was at the 
Willows — and I bought the old man’s 


breeders. I’ve got this bill-of-sale for 
them — ” 

“That you must have forged,” Har- 
ter said. “Because, on Thursday, Pom 
Rittenhouse was lying dead on a shelf 
at the high-water mark in the Gorge — 
fifteen feet above where he would have 
been found if it hadn’t been for the 
cloudburst in the mountains on that 
Wednesday night you’re talking about.” 

V IRGE DADE took two steps — caught 
old Dad Pastor by the shoulders, 
whirled him around and pointed. “If he 
was on Rittenhouse’s clay-bank horse, 
would he look like the man you bought 
Aberdeens from Thursday?” he inquired. 

Canning’s face grew livid. He turned 
— snatched up one of the guns Byington 
had taken from the strangers — whirled 
with it. Byington uttered a cry, but 
Canning pulled the trigger. 

It fell on an empty cylinder. 

Harter, standing now — wanting to die 
on his feet — laughed abruptly. “Those 
were the guns you were going to give us 
to fight our way out with, then, Bying- 
ton!” he said. 

The door behind Pete Rolls opened, 
and in it stood a slim young man, wear- 
ing heavy-lensed glasses and carrying 
a lawyer’s brief-case. Behind him loomed 
the unhappy moon-face of Sheriff Dal 
Grossbeck. 

“Excuse me, Canning,” the young man 
said, “for not knocking. But what I 
heard sounded as though time was of the 
essence of this whole matter.” 

“What in hell do you want here?” 
Canning cried, completely thrown off 
his guard. 

Byington picked up the threads swift- 
ly. “We’ve got your men here, Sheriff,” 
he said. He indicated the two strangers 
with a gesture. 

The Sheriff cleared his throat — colored. 
“Well,” he said, awkwardly, “we aren’t 
exactly looking for that pair. I — I hate 
to come here for what we are looking for, 
Mr. Canning. It’s you and Pasquale 
Aguerre — for murder.” 

“You won’t get far with this frame- 
up, Waltz!” Canning cried, foam fleck- 
ing his lips. “When I get through with 
you — ” 

The studious-looking young assistant 
district attorney shook his head. “Give 
it up, Canning,” he said in an earnest 
tone. He crossed to stand between Har- 
ter and Dade — he offered his hand to 
the foreman. “It’s a complete case, 
Mr. Harter,” he said. “After you left, 


THE PIT THAT HE DIGGED 


91 


we found the only thing that was lack- 
ing.” 

The Sheriff interrupted, crying out 
loudly: “Don’t try that, Aguerre!” He 
drew a heavy, awkward revolver, but he 
held it in a steady hand that made it 
the deadlier. Aguerre, looking pinched 
and venomous, turned back from the 
door, which he had almost succeeded in 
opening. “Bien, sehor !” he said pla- 
catingly. And he gave Byington and 
Canning a glance that was murderous. 

Boze Harter spoke: “The only thing 
that was lacking, Mr. Waltz? I thought 
we found that here — the man Canning 
used to look like Rittenhouse yesterday. 
The one Mrs. Bass saw.” He indicated 
old Dad Pastor. 

“We could have surmounted that dif- 
ficulty,” Waltz said. “But we needed 
one piece of definite proof that Canning 
actually was at Rittenhouse’s ranch 
Wednesday evening.” He opened his 
brief-case and took from it a soiled, 
creased, wrinkled envelope. “This morn- 
ing, you told me, you and your friend 
found a letter Rittenhouse was writing 
to your owner. It was dated the fourth 
— Wednesday.” 

“That’s right. I turned it over to 
you.” 

“Quite right. That letter said that if 
anything happened to the old gentleman, 
your Mr. Brookins was to sell the place 
and send the proceeds to a daughter. 
A Mrs. Annie Low.” 

“He didn’t give any address, though. 
We noticed that.” 

“You didn’t find the calendar sheet 
for Wednesday, the fourth, either, Har- 
ter. You recall that.” 

H OARSELY Canning spoke: “What’s 
this all about ? Let me in on it ! ” 
“Your attorneys will attend to these 
details for you, Mr. Canning,” young 
Waltz said politely. “And I’ll be done 
in a moment.” He addressed Harter 
and Dade as though no one else were in 
the room. “The fact is that Mr. Rit- 
tenhouse probably couldn’t recall his 
daughter’s address. So he put off look- 
ing it up; instead he went out to check 
on some calves. And he took with him 
that calendar page for the fourth to 
make his count on, as was his custom — 
as the filed sheets prove was his custom. 
Here it is.” 

Harter took it eagerly, as a man who 
sees something that he has known fa- 
miliarly, has misplaced and has found 
again. He turned over the sheet, so 


boldly printed with the words : Wednes- 
day, August, and with the large block 
numeral: 4. 

“Well, I’m damned!” he exclaimed. 
“Listen, Virge! Here’s thirty-seven — 
thirty-nine calves tallied — five by five. 
And under that the old man wrote: 
‘H. C. driving in here. Annie’s address 
on letter!” 

“Exactly,” Waltz said, with the care- 
ful preciseness of an able young prose- 
cutor. “While he was at his tally, he 
saw his enemy coming into the field. 
He knew that he was in danger — had 
known it for weeks. He wrote that Can- 
ning was driving in. He had just time to 
put that message, on the page for the 
fourth, into this envelope.” He held it 
out. “It is one mailed him by his daugh- 
ter, in California — with her address on 
the outside.” 

Canning made a peculiar sound — a 
laugh choked by a snarl. Byington, 
looking scornfully at him, turned to the 
district attorney’s deputy. 

“It looks like a pretty air-tight frame- 
up, from where you stand,” he sneered. 
“But all this talk about letters and 
calendars and pieces of scratch-paper — 
anyone could manufacture them!” 

W ALTZ turned a grave face on Can- 
ning’s right-hand man; then said: 
“If I were you, I’d speak softly, 
Byington. Because if Aguerre begins 
to talk, as I think he’ll soon be ready 
to do, you may be glad you had ! ” 
Involuntarily Byington glanced at the 
Mexican; what he saw there did not 
hearten him. The deputy district at- 
torney went on, almost as though ad- 
dressing a jury: “Evidence can be 
manufactured — that’s true ; but this piece 
could not be. No, not this one, Bying- 
ton. The Sheriff and coroner and Mr. 
and Mrs. Bass were present, late this 
afternoon, when I took this one from 
the coat-pocket of the dead man, old 
Mr. Rittenhouse.” 




I UNG WEN sat at the door of his shop 
by the river-side in the city of Can- 
-J ton, in the midst of two and a half 
million of his compatriots and an in- 
finity of smells. % 

Lung Wen was a silk merchant and 
very rich. He grew his finger-nails long, 
and was very proud of them. The mak- 
ing of money was the one all-engrossing 
occupation of his life. 

He now sat in the summer evening 
sunshine, when the heat of the day was 
past, regarding his finger-nails. And to 
him came his only assistant, Ah Sing, 
who had served Lung Wen more or less 
faithfully for as long as seven years. 

“Is it time to shut up the shop, Lung 
Wen?” asked Ah Sing. 

Lung Wen rose to his feet, folded his 
hands in the sleeves of his coat, and 
entered the house, followed by Ah Sing. 

Ah Sing wore a necklace of yellow jade, 
of which he was just as proud as was 
Lung Wen of his finger-nails, for it had 
belonged to his grandfather. Ah Sing 
was a poor man ; but because he believed 
that there was much merit in his neck- 
lace, he would not part with it. 

Slowly, for Lung Wen could not walk 
very fast, they went from room to room, 
locking up all the cupboards, chests and 
boxes in which the merchant kept his 
silks. It was a large, rambling house, 
similar to many others in the city, stand- 
ing upon the very margin of the river- 
bank. But though the house was so di- 
lapidated and so out of repair, the rooms 
contained rolls of silk to the value of 
several thousand dollars, to say nothing 
of Lung Wen’s steel safe that had come 
all the way from Osaka in Japan. 

When all the rooms on the ground floor 
had been locked up, and the shutters had 
been put up in the narrow street, Lung 


The Wail and 


A vivid drama of Chinese life, 
by the author of “Wild Metal.” 


Wen entered his counting-house, seating 
himself upon the high stool at his desk. 

“Your wages are due to you, Ah Sing,” 
he said. Very carefully, lest he should 
make a mistake, Lung Wen counted out 
fifteen silver dollars. 

Ah Sing took the money and bowed. 
“You may go, Ah Sing,” said the mer- 
chant. “You will be here at six o’clock 
in the morning.” 

“At six o’clock,” said Ah Sing. And he 
shuffled out of the room. 

Outside in the street, he turned and 
looked at the house, smiled and shrugged 
his shoulders. He had already made up 
his mind to be there long before six in 
the morning — but Lung Wen would know 
nothing about it. 

With this reflection, at once comforting 
and disturbing, Ah Sing wended his way 
to a distant quarter of the city, to a cer- 
tain opium-house where he had friends 
with whom he was wont to gamble, to 
whom week by week he would lose the 
wages he received from his master, the 
silk merchant, and to whom he was 
heavily in debt. . . . 

In the meantime, Lung Wen presently 
he got to his feet, produced his bunch of 
keys, and selecting the key of the steel 
safe he went to the safe, and opened it, 
and took out the bag of money he had 
just put in. 

Every evening of his life Lung Wen did 
the same thing : before Ah Sing had gone 
he unlocked the till in the shop, took out 
all the money that was there, put it in a 
canvas bag, and locked it up in the safe ; 
and as soon as Ah Sing had left the 
house, he would again unlock the safe, 
take out the money he had just put in, 
and hide it in a secret place of which no 
one but himself knew. 

From this it would appear that he did 
not trust Ah Sing, who had served him 
more or less faithfully for seven years. 
And what is to follow will prove that 
Lung Wen was right. He generally was. 

With the bag of money he returned to 
the counting-house, put down the bag on 
the desk, and rolled up the painted mat- 
92 


the Necklace 

By Charles 
Gilson 

ting that was spread upon the floor. Be- 
neath were the floor-boards, in which 
Lung Wen opened a small trapdoor, just 
large enough to admit one of his hands. 
Then he drew back a bolt and lifted a 
rectangular piece of flooring. 

When he had done this, he went to his 
desk, lit the lamp, and brought the lamp 
to the opening. Beneath was a kind of 
well ; and some twenty feet below, the 
light glittered upon the smooth surface 
of dark, oil-like water — the water of the 
Canton River. 

Lung Wen lay down upon the floor, 
flat on his face, by the side of the open- 
ing, and removed one of the bricks by the 
side of the well. And beyond this brick 
was a deep recess, into which he thrust 
his bag of money to the full extent of his 
arm. 

Then he put the brick back in its place, 
covered up the mouth of the well, shut- 
ting the trapdoor and rolling back the 
matting. 

Returning to his desk, he seated him- 
self upon his high stool, and thoughtfully 
examined his finger-nails in the light of 
the lamp. Lung Wen was a man of 
method, and nothing if not discreet. 

S HORTLY after midnight Ah Sing left 
the opium-house, smiling to himself 
as he went his way through the streets, in 
spite of the fact that five of his creditors 
had hounded him unmercifully. He 
smiled because he had smoked much 
opium, and because he carried in his 
pocket a duplicate key of the steel safe 
of Lung Wen, the silk merchant. 

After a while he came to Lung Wen’s 
shop. The street here was dark and de- 
serted. He crept round to the side of the 
house, opened a small window that he 
had purposely left unlatched, and climbed 
into the counting-room where was the 
steel safe that had come from Osaka and 
of which Lung Wen was so proud. 

In front of the safe Ah Sing went down 
on his knees, placing upon the floor an 
iron bar that he had brought with him. 
He had not brought a lantern. He did 



not need a light. Though the whole 
house was quite dark, he knew where 
everything was. Very quietly he opened 
the safe — and felt inside. And his jaw 
dropped, and his squinting eyes slowly 
revolved, and he made a strange kind of 
noise at the back of his throat, when he 
learned that the safe was empty. 

No man could have been more sur- 
prised than Ah Sing, or more genuinely 
disappointed. On that account he may 
be excused if he got to his feet and he 
swore. Then he caught his breath, for he 
had heard some one moving. 

On tiptoe Ah Sing glided into the shop, 
the victim of two emotions: anger and 
fear. And then from the darkness, near 
him, came a husky, frightened whisper: 

“Who’s there?” 

Ah Sing held his iron bar in his hand. 
He struck with it, with all his force — and 
he struck nothing but air. Then it was 
that old Lung Wen sprang upon his back, 
and clinging to him like a leech, shouted 
at the top of his voice : 

“Robbers! Murder! Thieves!” 

Grappling with one another, they rolled 
over and over, and for a moment it looked 
as if the merchant would get the better 
of Ah Sing. For Lung Wen had grasped 
the jade necklace that Ah Sing wore 
round his neck ; and he was twisting it — 
twisting it slowly and slowly, until Ah 
Sing felt that he was becoming black in 
the face, and the blood was beating in his 
temples — beating like the gongs at the 
Dragon Festival when all honest men 
have paid the debts they owe, whether to 
the gods or to their fellow-men. 

Desperate, Ah Sing put forth the whole 
of his strength, flung back his head, freed 
himself, and at once sprang to his feet. A 
second blow with his iron bar, although 
aimed at random, ended with a dull thud, 


94 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


a soft, almost inaudible groan — and then 
all was still. 

Ah Sing stood motionless for several 
seconds, breathing heavily and with great 
difficulty. 

What had he done? He had killed 
Lung Wen, his master! Sooner or later, 
Lung Wen would be found dead in the 
shop, and Ah Sing would be suspected. 
For all that, he did not lose his head com- 
pletely. He had enough presence of mind 
to return to the counting-house, to lock 
up the safe with his duplicate key, and 
then to make his escape by the window 
by which he had entered. 

Returning to the hovel where he lived, 
he flung himself down on his couch, and 
he tried his best to think : If he ran away, 
he would at once be suspected by the 
yamen authorities; and if he was ar- 
rested, there would be very little doubt 
that he would be led to the Potter’s Yard, 
and there beheaded. It was therefore — 
or so it seemed to him — a case in which 
the bolder course might prove to be the 
safer ; and hence he decided that, at six 
o’clock in the morning, he would go to his 
work as usual, and pretend to discover 
the crime. 

P UNCTUALLY at six next morning, 
therefore, Ah Sing arrived at Lung 
Wen’s shop, where, to his amazement, he 
saw that the shutters had already been 
taken down, that the door was open, and 
Lung Wen himself was standing on the 
threshold with his head bound about with 
a bandage, regarding his fingernails. 

Though taken aback for a moment, Ah 
Sing was clever enough to feign surprise. 
He flung his hands in the air ; he opened 
his eyes as wide as he could, and he 
squinted worse than ever. 

“What is this ?” he exclaimed. “What 
has happened, Lung Wen? What calam- 
ity has befallen my august and honor- 
able master ?” 

“A robber,” Lung Wen replied, as if 
that was a matter of no importance. 

“Has anything been stolen?” Ah Sing 
inquired. 

“Nothing,” said Lung Wen. “Nothing 
has been stolen.” 

“That is fortunate,” Ah Sing remarked. 
“Very fortunate, indeed ! And may I ask, 
has the thief escaped ?” 

Lung Wen did not reply to that ques- 
tion. He merely looked at his finger- 
nails; and he observed what he had 
seen already; namely, that a corner of 
the nail of the right hand second finger 
had been torn off completely. 


And after he had looked at his finger- 
nails, Lung Wen looked at Ah Sing; he 
looked him straight in the face. He did 
not look at the jade necklace that Ah 
Sing wore around his neck, because, be- 
ing a very observant old man, he had al- 
ready seen that there was a torn strip 
of finger-nail wedged between two of the 
jade beads. 

“The sages and the philosophers of our 
enlightened country have taught us,” he 
remarked, with a nonchalant shrug of the 
shoulders, “never to regret what is past 
and done with. All that concerns you 
and me, Ah Sing, is to see that such a 
thing can never occur again. Therefore, 
Ah Sing, to work! Let us remove the 
safe into my bedroom. Do you think you 
can carry it ?” 

Ah Sing took off his short coolie’s coat. 

“I can certainly carry it,” said he. 
“It is heavy, but I am strong.” 

“Then let us move it at once, Ah Sing, 
before the customers begin to arrive.” 

Together they went into the counting- 
house, where Ah Sing, with some diffi- 
culty, hitched the steel safe onto his 
back, and then gave vent to a grunt. 

“It is heavy ! ” said he. “And. it hurts.” 

“It is your necklace,” said Lung Wen. 
“The jade beads are hard, and the weight 
of the safe presses them into your neck. 
I advise you to take off your necklace, Ah 
Sing. It is a pity you ever wore it — a 
pity, so far as you are concerned.” 

After Ah Sing had put the safe down 
upon the floor, he took off his necklace 
and he handed it to Lung Wen, who went 
into his counting-house and sat down at 
his desk. 

I T took Ah Sing nearly five minutes to 
carry the safe up the stairs ; while he 
was doing so, Lung Wen removed the 
little strip of finger-nail from between 
the beads of the necklace, and discovered 
that it fitted exactly into the broken 
nail of the second finger of his right hand. 
That was all he wanted to know. 
Presently Ah Sing returned. 

“Is the safe in my bedroom?” Lung 
Wen asked. “You are a good servant, Ah 
Sing. It is a pity we must part. But 
only for a little time. Life on this earth 
is brief. I have not yet told you that I 
must leave this city at once on very im- 
portant business. I have to go to Chung- 
king.” 

“Chungking!” exclaimed Ah Sing. 
“That is a long way away ! ” 

“A very long way,” Lung Wen agreed. 
“But it cannot be helped. I want you to 


THE NAIL AND THE NECKLACE 


95 


go down to the shipping-office on the Is- 
land of Shameen and inquire if there is 
a boat leaving today for Ichang. We 
will have to shut up the shop. But you 
shall have your wages in advance. Of a 
certainty, you shall have your wages. 
Will you go at once, if you please ? There 
is no time to lose.” 

W ITH certain grave misgivings, Ah 
Sing shuffled out of the room. The 
moment he was gone, old Lung Wen was 
like a man under the influence of some 
wonderful rejuvenating drug: his eyes 
became bright, he was no longer slow in 
his movements. He rolled back the mat- 
ting from the floor, and opened the little 
trapdoor. And he removed the lid of the 
well. 

For a moment he stood looking down 
into the darkness. “It must be very cold, 
down there,” he remarked. “Very cold 
and dark and still ! ” 

But a moment after on hands and 
knees, he was hard at work again. He 
removed all the loose bricks at the top 
of the well, save two, which he very care- 
fully placed at points opposite each oth- 
er, half sticking out of the wall. And up- 
on these two loose bricks he placed the 
lid of the well, so balanced that the 
slightest weight upon either' side would 
cause it to topple over. Lung Wen was 
a man of method. 

Then after hiding all the bricks in one 
of his silk chests, he fitted the matting 
neatly over the balanced lid of the well. 
And finally he tidied up the room. And 
when he had done all these things, he sat 
down on the high stool at his desk, and 
waited for Ah Sing to return. . . . 

At last he heard the front door open, 
heard footsteps in the shop ; and then Ah 
Sing made his appearance. 

“Well,” asked Lung Wen, “have you 
obtained the information I wanted? Is 
there a boat to Ichang today ?” 

“Master,” Ah Sing replied, “the boat 
has already gone. It sailed soon after I 
got there.” 

Lung Wen looked surprised, and also 
very annoyed. He was neither one nor 
the other: he knew quite well that the 
boat had gone. 

“How unfortunate!” he exclaimed. 
“But what is a day, when life is so short? 
Here is your necklace, Ah Sing.” 

Quite suddenly Ah Sing had become 
afraid. He could not understand why, 
but he had begun to tremble all over. 
Lung Wen was holding out a hand in 
which was the yellow jade necklace. 


“This is a very beautiful necklace,” 
Lung Wen remarked, as if he had not 
looked at it before. “I would like to 
own such a necklace myself.” Then he 
shrugged. “But take it, Ah Sing,” said he. 
“It is yours. I envy you nothing else.” 

So Ah Sing stepped forward to take 
possession of his own property — and im- 
mediately he fell into the trap that had 
been laid for him: in other words, he 
dropped down into the well, and the floor 
swallowed him up. He went down into 
the darkness and the dampness, into the 
cold, silent water of the Canton River, 
which is not pleasant water in any sense 
of the word, because it is mostly mud. 
But that did not matter to Ah Sing, be- 
cause he struck his head against the side 
of the well and reached the bottom un- 
conscious. 

As for Lung Wen, still sitting on the 
high stool at his desk, he put the jade 
necklace round his neck, and looked at 
his fingernails. And there he sat, with- 
out moving, for quite a long time, until 
he heard a violent knocking on the door. 

H E got to his feet in no particular hur- 
ry, and shuffled into the shop. And 
there on the threshold were five men, all 
looking very disreputable, very hot and 
very angry. 

“What do you want?” asked Lung 
Wen, politely. 

They all answered together. 

“Ah Sing,” they cried. “We want Ah 
Sing ! Where is he ?” 

“I do not know,” Lung Wen replied. 
“I do not suppose anyone knows. He 
went away this morning. I have an idea 
he has gone to Chungking.” 

All five threw up their arms. 
“Chungking ! ” exclaimed one, who was 
better dressed than the others. “What 
did I tell you? He has given us the 
slip ! ” 

Lung Wen lifted his eyebrows. 

“Did you particularly wish to see 
him ?” he asked in his mildest voice. 

“I have seen him,” cried the man who 
had spoken before. “I saw him little 
more than an hour ago. He came down 
to the docks. I might have guessed that 
he would cut and run, rather than pay 
his just debts!” 

Lung Wen looked doubtful. 

“If Ah Sing has gone,” said he, “I’m 
afraid your money has gone with him. 
I am sorry for you, but I can do nothing. 
I am not concerned in the matter, be- 
cause Ah Sing owes me nothing at all. 
In fact, it was the other way round.” 


CJrigger <^\Cen 


M UDD didn’t want to go. We’d 
been having a nice time as we 
were : Mudd because I’d brought 
a bottle of very special Scotch over to 
him, I because I had finally got him to 
talking. Detective Sergeant Joe Mudd 
couldn’t talk without being interesting. 

He had been telling me about the time 
two or three years before when a couple 
of guns had tried to free Jake Zeppechi 
when they were putting him on the train, 
taking him to the Federal prison. The 
guns were dead; they had killed Zep- 
pechi and killed three of his guards ; two 
of them had been F.B.I. Men, and the 
Department of Justice had squared up 
with them. The other one had been Red 
Armstrong, a White Falls detective. 

“Yes,” Mudd had said. “They took 
care of the trigger men. A couple of 
coked-up lads doin’ a job of work for 
their price. The papers said they , were 
tryin’ to lift Zeppechi. They weren’t. 
They were hired to kill Zeppechi, be- 
cause Zeppechi was gonna talk. The 
guards just happened to be in the way 
when they turned loose with their type- 
writer.” 

Just then the phone had rung. 

Mudd came back swearing dispassion- 
ately. “Yes,” he went on as if he hadn’t 
been interrupted, “they can’t ever prove 
that, but I know it’s so. And I know 
the guy that had it done, and I’ll take 
care of that some time. Red Armstrong 
got his that day, and Red was a friend 
of mine. ... I got to go downtown now. 
You want to come?” 

“Where to?” I asked. 

“Carlotta’s,” Mudd said, pulling on 
his coat. I got up and put on my coat 
too. Carlotta’s was exciting, even if 
nothing happened. 

We went down in the elevator and out 
through the lobby and got in Mudd’s car. 
I didn’t ask him why we were going, or 
what the phone-call had been, because I 
knew he wouldn’t tell me until he wanted 
to, and then I wouldn’t have to ask. 

Carlotta’s is down on the river-front; 
you have to drive over three blocks of 
rough cobblestones, between high walls 
of unlighted dinginess, to reach it. 

Inside, the ceiling is low and the lights 
are never bright. Usually the air is 



stale. But the rough tables are solid 
walnut, the checked cloths are linen, the 
glass is crystal. And there is a swell 
band there — the swellest that has ever 
been in White Falls. 

Mudd pulled his car up across the 
street from the little sign, and my heart 
started beating a bit faster in spite of 
myself as I watched him check over his 
service revolver, which he was wearing 
in a shoulder-holster under his coat. 

“Just routine,” he said. “Some dame 
called me up and told me to come down 
here. Said somebody was scheduled to 
get bumped off, and if I was sittin’ in 
the place it probably wouldn’t come off. 
The chances are a hundred to one it was 
some crank, or some of my so-called 
friends with that kind of a sense of 
humor.” He put the gun back in its hol- 
ster. “But anyway,” he added, “there’s 
no use takin’ chances.” 


Detective Mudd remembers a friend and 
deals in his own way with a case of murder. 

By Eustace Cockrell 


Illustrated by E. H. Kuhlhofl 



There was a good crowd when we got 
there at ten-thirty. All sorts of people. 
It was always like that. Thugs and 
punks and gangsters, play-boys and men- 
about-town and aristocrats. 

“Margot,” as the orchestra leader had 
announced her, was dancing. Margot 
was a small blonde, and to my mind no 
dancer. I was looking around. 

Joe Mudd and I were seated at a table 
for two over against one wall, and from 
it I could see the entire room; but I 
saw it only as a composite picture with 
little attention to any person or detail 
that went to make up the whole. 

Later I was sorry there was no com- 
plete clarity to my mental image — a 
clarity about which I could be definite 
and certain. But as I looked back on it, 
I got only the same picture I got that 
night when I tried to reconstruct the 
scene of those first few minutes. 


Margot had finished her dance and 
was leaving the floor. I remember that. 
The place was now full of people. A lot 
of them I knew myself, and some of 
them Mudd had identified for me. 

But I didn’t see them as people so 
much, this important moment. I saw 
them more as impressionistic flashes of 
different things that went to make up 
the night-club that was Carlotta’s. 

Carlotta herself had come onto the 
floor and begun her song. And when you 
saw and heard Carlotta, you knew why 
the place was as popular as it was. She 
was singing “Midnight Babies,” and the 
light on her had begun to dim. All the 
other lights in the house were out then, 
as always when she sang. 

In the hazy reflection from the spot, 
as my eyes swept the room and then 
fastened on Carlotta, I got only these 
momentary glimpses of people. 

97 



98 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


I saw Ike Stein, a small-time racket- 
eer, sitting at a table by himself at the 
edge of the dance floor and eying the 
sultry beauty of the singer with a not 
too subdued covetousness in his eyes. 
. . . I saw Arnold Marshalt sitting at a 
table behind Ike Stein’s. He was with 
his sister and Bud Fenston, his sister’s 
fiance. Marshalt was young and good- 
looking and rich. His eyes were not 
readable but they had something somber 
in them and they were not on Carlotta. 
They were on Bud Fenston — Bud Fen- 
ston, sitting pale and drawn, looking de- 
terminedly at Evelyn Marshalt, whose 
face held a hopelessness strangely out of 
place on those finely chiseled features 
you felt were designed to reflect gayety. 
. . . I saw Junky Rothfuss sitting at a 
table beside Marshalt’s. He was with 
some other people, but he might have 
been alone. He was cold and quiet, and 
there was no more in his eyes than in 
those things that hang in front of op- 
tometrists’ shops. He was a known 
power in the White Falls underworld. 
How high his power reached no one 
knew. Carlotta was said to be his girl. 

I saw — but of course, I didn’t see 
these things: I only got impressions of 
them. All I saw was Carlotta, for she 
was singing, and when she sang, that’s 
all you knew about. 

The spot of light was getting dimmer, 
as it always did when she sang. Then 
on the last note of her song the light 
would go out entirely, and there would 
be darkness complete for one moment 
while utter silence held the place. Then 
the light would come on, and the band 
would play, and everyone would be talk- 
ing at once in a sort of uneasy way. 
That’s what Carlotta did. 

That’s why you watched her. Tonight 
it was like other nights. She was stand- 
ing there singing. Then it happened. 

T HERE was no warning unless you 
count the tenseness that always hung 
over things down there. But it went 
very quickly. Too much so, for when it 
was over, I could remember it only in 
fleeting glimpses, like a movie in which 
everything has been falsely speeded up. 

The detonation of the shot rumbled 
in that low room, and I saw a figure dive 
awkwardly toward Carlotta’s feet and 
lie there, blood spurting from what had 
been a head. 

The spotlight on Carlotta, the only 
light, went out. But as it went out, 
there was quick movement across the 


room, scuffling noise, a grunt ; I saw Bud 
Fenston moving, and I saw Marshalt 
move, jostling Rothfuss as he rose. 

And then across the table from me a 
chair scraped harshly on the floor, and 
there was a rattle as it fell. 

J OE MUDD was standing up, and in 
the darkness there was the hoarse and 
reassuring bellow of his voice: 
“Lights 1” 

Maybe it was two seconds ; it couldn’t 
have been a minute. The lights came 
on — the spot first, then the little lights 
that hung around the wall ; then the faint 
lights overhead. And then — 

“Drop that guy 1 Get him ! ” 

They got him near the door. A waiter 
tackled him. It was Arnold Marshalt, 
and I remembered that the flame that 
had stabbed the darkness on the far side 
of the room had come from his table or 
from very near it. 

Carlotta stepped back slowly, chalk- 
colored, and the long white evening dress 
she wore had a red border on the bottom 
where it trailed in Ike Stein’s blood. 

Mudd strode across the floor, knelt a 
moment. Then he rose, and I saw his 
lips form the obvious words to Carlotta, 
still moving slowly back : “He’s dead.” 

Then there came a steady rustle of 
brittle chatter, punctuated by chairs 
scraping on the floor as they were pushed 
back from the tables. 

Mudd’s voice cut through everything 
loudly : 

“Sit down! Everybody stay right 
where he is for the moment.” 

A man who had got to his feet said 
patronizingly, bold with drink: “Who 
the hell are you, anyhow?” 

Mudd reached in his pocket for his 
shield. “I’m Detective Sergeant Mudd, 
buddy; and I love it when people get 
cute with me. Sit down.” The man sat 
down. “I’m sorry,” Mudd went on to 
the crowd. “We’ll get through here and 
let you go just as soon as we can. In 
the meantime just keep your seats and 
take it easy.” I sidled onto the floor, 
and Mudd turned and told me to call 
Headquarters. 

When I came back into the room a 
minute later, Mudd had moved from the 
dance-floor and was walking between the 
tables toward where the waiter had 
tackled Marshalt. 

Mudd turned to Carlotta, who had 
followed him. “I’ll need a room — ” 
Carlotta nodded automatically. “You 
can use my office,” she said. Then there 


TRIGGER MEN 


99 


was the scream of sirens outside and in 
a moment men from headquarters started 
pouring in. Inspector Jaffre, men in 
uniform, plainclothesmen, photographers, 
men from the lab. There must have been 
fifteen or sixteen of them. 

Mudd walked over and talked hurried- 
ly to Inspector Jaffre, and I saw the In- 
spector nod. 

He came back then to Marshalt. 
“Okay, son,” he said. “Let’s go.” He 
nodded to me, and the three of us started 
for Carlotta’s little office in the back. 
Jaffre stopped us. 

“I want him,” Mudd said, jerking a 
thumb toward me. “He came down with 
me. I want him.” Jaffre nodded again 
doubtfully, and we went on back through 
an aisle of white faces, Marshalt in front, 
I following Mudd. As we went into the 
little office I heard Bud Fenston, his 
voice desperate, yell : “Wait ! ” 

I turned and saw him half rise before 
a big cop standing behind his chair 
shoved him back down. 

We sat down in the office, Mudd be- 
hind the desk. “You killed him,” Mudd 
said. “What did you do it for?” 

“No,” Marshalt said, and his voice 
was little more than a whisper. “No.” 

Mudd said amiably: “You shot him, 
all right.” He turned to me and barked : 
“The shot came from his table?” 

“I — yes,” I stammered. “It looked 
like it.” 

“No,” Marshalt said again in that 
small voice. “No.” 

“Your sister speaks with a broad A, 
doesn’t she?” Mudd asked then, un- 
expectedly. 

“Why, yes, but she hadn’t anything — ” 

“She called me up,” Mudd said. “You 
shot him. Where’s the gun?” 

“I didn’t,” Marshalt said. “I didn’t.” 
Then suddenly his expression changed. 
“Yes,” he said dully, “I killed him. He 
had some letters — my sister’s. He was 
blackmailing her, trying to. Yes, I killed 
him. Let’s go.” 

“Wait a minute,” Mudd said. He 
looked puzzled and the heavy creases in 
his face deepened. “Where’s the gun?” 

M ARSHALT stuck his hand into his 
inside jacket pocket. “Here it is,” 
he said, “What difference does it make? 
I lost my nerve and ran.” 

Mudd took the gun, and holding it by 
the barrel with his handkerchief, he 
sniffed it. He grunted. 

“I’m glad Stein’s dead,” Marshalt said 
slowly. “The letters were old letters. I 



don’t know how he got hold of them. 
They didn’t mean anything, but they 
looked as if they did. My sister wants 
to marry Bud Fenston,” he concluded 
disjointedly. 

“Son,” Mudd said, and his voice 
sounded as though he were trying to 
make it kindly, “go out there and sit 
down. Give me your word you won’t 
say anything to anyone, until I tell you 
or send you word. Give me your word.” 

“All right,” Marshalt said. “What dif- 
ference does it make ? I’ll give my word.” 

When Marshalt had left, Mudd called 
me to the desk. The gun was lying 
there. “What kind of gun is that?” he 
asked me. “Don’t touch it.” 

“It’s a thirty-eight,” I said, “seven- 
shot automatic — say, what in the blazes 
is this? You’re not blind. You know 
more about guns than I do.” 

Mudd picked it up and began polish- 
ing it with his handkerchief. “I may 
want you to take a message for me,” 
he said, “and I won’t have time to ex- 
plain — if you take the message. If any- 
thing happens in here in the next fifteen 
minutes, I want you to pick up the gun 
on the desk and put it in your pocket, 
and throw it in the river going home. 
And then forget all about it.” He left 
then, but in a minute he was back, and 
Bud Fenston was with him. 

He didn’t question Fenston. Fenston 
didn’t give him time. When he saw the 
gun on the table, he said quickly, his 
voice tense: “That’s my gun. I killed 
Stein. Arnold grabbed the gun away 
from me. I killed him. It’s my gun.” 

“You shot him?” Mudd asked. 

“Yes, I shot him. I — I had to. Arnold 
grabbed the gun away from me.” 


100 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 



Mudd grinned. “What did you shoot 
him for?” 

“That’s my affair,” Fenston said de- 
fiantly. 

“All right. All right.” Mudd’s voice 
was soothing. “Will you go out there 
and sit down and not say anything, not 
say anything to anyone until I send you 
word? Will you give me your word? 
Your word of honor?” 

“It won’t involve Miss Marshalt or 
Arnold?” Fenston asked, and keen hope 
showed in his face. 

“No,” Mudd said. “My word on that.” 

“All right,” Fenston said. And Mudd 
let him go. 

He turned to me. “Open the window,” 
he said. “From the bottom. What sort of 
a drop is it to the ground ?” 

I looked down out of the window. “No 
drop at all,” I said. “Six feet, maybe.” 
And then, because I couldn’t keep it 
back any longer, though I knew it 
wouldn’t do me any good, I blurted out 
a question. “What’s the answer? Fen- 
ston killed him — Marshalt killed him. 
Which one did? And why all this stuff 
about the gun, the window? Tell me 
something?” 

“I’ll tell you this,” Mudd said. “I’m 
the greatest detective that ever hit the 
city of White Falls, and there’s no 
question about that. Let me handle this 
case. Let me try to solve a case without 
you buttin’ in with a lot of questions. 
And if I solve it, you keep your trap 
shut. You do what I tell you and keep 
your trap shut. I know what I’m doing. 
You watch.” 

“But,” I said, trying to keep exasper- 
ation out of my voice, “one of those 
boys is bound to have done it. There’s 
the gun, and there’s the motive. Why all 
this business about letting you solve the 
case? The case is solved.” 


Mudd looked at me. “Sit down there 
in the corner,” he said to me, “and let 
me be the detective.” And so I did. 

He went out then, but in a minute he 
came back, with Junky Rothfuss. 

Mudd sat down at the desk and beck- 
oned Rothfuss to the chair by the win- 
dow. “Well, Junky,” Mudd said, and 
though his voice was soft, it gave me a 
shivery feeling, “it’s nice to see you here. 
You’re heeled, I guess?” 

“I got a permit, copper, from the 
sheriff’s office,” Junky Rothfuss growled. 

“Okay, Junky. Just routine. Let me 
see the rod,” Mudd said. 

Junky Rothfuss looked at Mudd a 
minute. “Sure,” he said. He reached 
under his coat and handed Mudd a gun. 
Mudd took it, holding it by the barrel 
with his handkerchief. 

“I don’t want my prints on any gun of 
yours, Junky,” he said good-humoredly. 

I noticed then, suddenly, that the gun 
on the desk was gone. 

“Yeah,” Mudd said, sitting down be- 
hind the desk. “Thirty-eight automatic. 
Nice gun.” He laid it in his lap. “Now 
let me see the permit, Junky.” 

Ruthfuss dug in his billfold and 
handed Mudd a card. Mudd looked at 
it carelessly, picked up the gun with his 
handkerchief and handed it back with 
the card. “All shipshape, Junky!” 

Junky Rothfuss replaced the gun and 
card. “Talk fast, copper,” he said. “I 
got other things to do besides listenin’ 
to you gab. I gotta get home.” 

“All right, Junky,” Mudd said evenly. 
“You’ll get home — home through the 
green door ! Home to the old easy-chair. 
You’ve been away too long.” 

Junky Rothfuss grinned, and his grin 
was mirthless too. “Make ’em up as 
you go along, flatfoot?” he asked. 

A ND Mudd grinned back. “Carlotta 
. was your girl, wasn’t she, Junky? 
Carlotta was your girl, and you had shot 
off your kisser about rubbin’ out Ike Stein 
if he didn’t stay away. That was danger- 
ous talk, Junky. I thought you were 
smarter than that. Lots of people heard 
you. It even got around so bad that the 
dumb coppers heard about it.” 

Junky Rothfuss made his voice weary. 
“You got nothin’ on me. And I’m 
gettin’ sleepy. Speak your piece.” 

“Well,” Mudd said, “you’re the best 
suspect we got. We’ll have to run you 
in, Junky.” 

“You won’t make that hold, copper,” 
Junky Rothfuss said. “I’ll be out in an 


TRIGGER MEN 


101 


hour. I seen the guy that let Ike have 
it. It was the Fenston punk, and the kid 
with him grabbed the gun and run.” 

“Yes,” Mudd said. “We’ll make it 
stick. We’re gonna burn you, Junky. 
We’ll make it stick.” He paused a 
moment, and lit a cigarette. “Who’ll 
believe a member of one of the town’s 
finest families would kill a rat like Stein 
for no reason, when they know that you’d 
threatened to kill him yourself for a 
damned good one?” 

R OTHFUSS didn’t change expression 
. except a hair’s breadth, but it con- 
verted his face into a sneer. “You got 
nothing on me,” he repeated. 

“Yes,” Mudd went on, as if he hadn’t 
heard him. “They shave your head, and 
they hook the plates on tight to your 
legs, and then they pull the volts through 
you. The scientists say it doesn’t hurt, 
but they don’t know. It looks to me like 
it hurts when the smoke comes up, and 
you smell the old burning flesh, and you 
sort of jerk and twitch — ” 

I sat tense, listening to Mudd’s dron-. 
ing voice, dripping conviction and grim 
assurance, and I wondered. 

“It looks like it hurts plenty — and no- 
body has ever come back to say it 
didn’t.” 

“You’ve jumped your trolley.” said 
Rothfuss. But his smile was mirthless. 

Mudd said evenly: “We’ve frisked 
everybody in the joint. The gun aint 
there. The gun in your holster has been 
fired once. The ballistics boys will 
check the slug with the one in Ike Stein’s 
head, and they’ll prove it came out of 
your gun. The one in your holster.” 

Junky Rothfuss jerked out his gun, 
and he sniffed the barrel. He whipped 
the clip open and looked. He sat there 
tense, the gun in his hand. 

Mudd had his service revolver out, 
and he was leveling on Junky Rothfuss. 

Junky put the gun back under his coat. 
Mudd said slowly, putting his own gun 
up too: “I’ve been after you for two 
years, Junky. And now I’ve got you 
framed. Framed cold!” 

“Switched guns, eh?” Junky Rothfuss 
whispered. 

“You guessed it,” Mudd told him. 
“Here’s your gun.” He laid another 
thirty-eight automatic on the desk. 

And Junky Rothfuss moved, a fraction 
of an inch only, it seemed to me. And 
suddenly there was the gun in his hand 
again, and he fired once as Mudd slid 
down behind the desk. 


I half jumped up as Junky snaked 
over the window-sill. I couldn’t help it. 
I figured that it was suicide, but I liked 
Joe Mudd. I was on my feet and start- 
ing to move as Junky saw me and turned, 
one arm crooked over the window-ledge, 
his gun in the other. 

But I started to move forward even 
as Junky began bringing his gun into 
careful alignment. Then I heard Mudd’s 
voice as he crawled around the desk. 

“Here’s one for Red Armstrong, 
Junky!” the voice said. And there was 
a shot. I saw Rothfuss’ thin-lipped 
snarling mouth go suddenly, horribly, 
red and round. And his arm relaxed, and 
there was the empty window. 

I grabbed the gun off the desk and 
stuffed it into my pocket as Jaffre broke 
into the door then, a sawed-off shotgun 
in his hands. 

“Junky Rothfuss,” Mudd said, stand- 
ing up. “Killed while attempting to 
escape. He’s out the window there. His 
gun has been fired twice, and the bal- 
listics men will find the slug in Ike’s 
head was the first one. You can tell the 
people to go home.” He walked over to 
me and hit me on the shoulder, and then 
started awkwardly peeling off his coat, 
and I noticed one was dripping blood. 

“Damn,” he said to me. “You scared 
me when you jumped up. What were 
you gonna do — bite him?” 

“I don’t know,” I admitted shakily, 
feeling foolish ; but I looked up and saw 
Mudd looking at me with a funny light 
in his eyes, and I quit feeling foolish 
because his look was one of respect. And 
I was suddenly proud. Joe Mudd didn’t 
respect or admire many things. 

“Send the sawbones in here, Chief,” 
Mudd said, turning, and unbuttoning his 
shirt with one hand, clumsily. “I gave 
him too much head start. He got lucky 
and nicked me. I must be gettin’ slow.” 

H E turned to me and added, bending 
so no one could hear: “Go out and 
tell the kids how it is — all three of ’em.” 
Straightening up, he concluded, in a nor- 
mal voice: “And come up to the hotel 
pretty soon, and I’ll tell you the end of 
that story.” 

“Okay,” I told him, but as I made my 
way to Marshak’s table, it occurred to 
me that I knew the end of the story now. 

So I told it to Bud Fenston, and Mar- 
shalt, and Marshalt’s sister, while they 
drove me home ; and they stopped on the 
bridge over the river, and I threw the 
gun a mile. 



A/i 


v L 0GA of the 


The great climax of an epic novel. 


The Story Thus Far : 

H EROIC indeed, that strange figure 
Kioga of the Wilderness! And a 
strange heroic land — Nato’wa, the 
wild newfound region beyond the Arctic 
north of Siberia, warmed by ocean cur- 
rents and by great volcanic fissures and 
hot springs; a land wooded with ever- 
greens, and supporting many wild ani- 
mals. Stranger still its people — who were 
so like the American Indians that Dr. 
Rand (a medical missionary whose ship 
had been blown out of her course and 
wrecked upon the coast of Nato’wa) soon 
decided that here was the original birth- 
place of the Indian race. 

Not long afterward, the son of Lin- 
coln Rand and his wife Helena was born ; 
but only a few weeks later the child’s 
parents were both killed. Yet in this 
primitive life Kioga, or the Snow Hawk, 
as he was named, grew to a splendid 
manhood. Eventually, indeed, he became 
war-chieftain of the tribe. But when an- 


on the reefs of Nato’wa, were about to be 
put to death, Kioga rescued them. For 
that he was exiled from his adopted people. 

Longing to see the country of his 
fathers, Kioga aided this castaway yacht- 
ing party — Beth La Salle, her brother 
Dan and her suitor Allan Kendle — to 
build a boat and escape. But civilization 
proved too much for the Snow Hawk. 
Disgusted by its many hypocrisies and 
believing his love rejected by Beth, he 
set out to make his way back to Nato’- 
wa; on the way he gathered a group of 
American Indians to take back with him. 

And at last they reached Nato’wa. But 
while Kioga was absent, they were at- 
tacked by a Shoni war-party and either, 
killed or made captive. . . . Kioga was 
able to rescue his friends ; but later he was 
himself captured and put to the torture. 
At the last moment he escaped, indeed — 
but only to wander blinded in the forest. 

Meanwhile, Beth La Salle, her brother 
Dan and their friend the scientist: Dr. 


other p^rty of white people, wrecked up- 

Copyright, 1936, by The McCall Company (The Blue Book Magazine). All rights reserved. 

102 



-*4» >‘i* 


Wilderness 

By William L. Chester 


Munro chartered the schooner Narwhal 
and sailed from San Francisco to over- 
take him. After a winter spent with the 
Narwhal frozen in the ice, and accompa- 
nied by a group of castaway seal-poachers 
whom they had rescued, they reached 
Nato’wa — only to have these renegade 
whites desert, after stealing weapons. 

Munro found a safe berth for the ship 
in a hidden cove ; then, with Beth, Dan 
and his men Hanson and Flashpan, he 
journeyed to the village of the Shoni and 
made friends with them. Learning of the 
fate which had befallen Kioga, Munro 
and his party, accompanied by Kias and 
Kioga’s boyhood sweetheart Heladi, set 
forth to attempt his rescue. 

They found the cave where he had 
made his home. But they found also his 
tracks leading to a tremendous landslide 
which had apparently engulfed him. 

Mourning Kioga as dead, the expedi- 
tion returned to Hopeka, the Shoni cap- 
ital. Soon after, Flashpan discovered 


large deposits of gold in the river-bed. 
But they had incurred the enmity of the 
powerful Long Knife society. Just in 
time, the white voyagers, with a number 
of friendly Shoni, escaped to a rude fort 
they had prepared on an island in the 
river. There they were besieged by the 
Long Knives and by the renegade whites, 
who had joined forces. 

Meanwhile Kioga, who had escaped 
the landslide, had recovered from his 
blindness. Wandering northward to a 
plains region, he encountered the Wa- 
Kanek, a tribe of horse-riding natives; 
and because he possessed a knife former- 
ly owned by a son of their old matron- 
chief Magpie, he was received as the 
long-missing Wa-Kanek youth. And soon 
by a series of brilliant achievements, he 
rose to high place among the Wa-Kanek. 

F AR to the west of Fort Talking Rav- 
en, before the tall painted tent of old 
Magpie, a great bear-skin hung stretched 


103 


104 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 



to dry upon a rack. Blanketed feath- 
ered figures stood wonderingly before this 
evidence of Black Shield’s victory over 
the beast. 

But near the lodge stood a silver-coat- 
ed stallion, unridden for many a day; 
and the Indians before the lodge spoke 
in softened tones. 

Kioga would have preferred to endure 
his hurts in solitude. But the penalty of 
fame is publicity, even among the people 
of the Tall Tents. Twenty medicine-men, 
at one time or another, had come at the 
anxious Magpie’s bidding, to exhort the 
evil spirits from her favorite. 

Sudden silence greeted the appearance 
of the old matron chief, who emerged 
from the lodge lean and gaunt after her 
long vigil over the wounded Black Shield. 
A small brown naked boy plucked at her 
deerskin skirt, with a childish query that 
spoke the thought of all the older folk 
gathered near by: “When will Black 
Shield ride again?” 

“Tonight, perhaps, or on the morrow,” 
answered Magpie with a tired but happy 
smile; and the faces of men and women 
lighted up. 

But in the lodge of Wolf Jaw the news 
was received with ominous silence, for 
among the twenty who had sought to aid 


Kioga’s cure was Many Hunts, whose 
piercing eye had fathomed Black Shield’s 
true identity. 

“You heard?” demanded Wolf Jaw 
fiercely of his assembled friends. “These 
many weeks I’ve called Black Shield 
impostor. Now Many Hunts confirms 
me — and was he not with our warriors at 
the battle of the Painted Cliffs, where 
the Shoni chief Kioga turned us back? 
Did he not look upon their blue-eyed 
chieftain ? Who would better know than 
he that Kioga and Black Shield are one 
and the same?” 

Meanwhile to Kioga came Me-Kon- 
Agi, ostensibly to smoke a friendly pipe, 
but in fact to warn his friend. 

“Wolf Jaw and his fellows,” he said 
hurriedly, “hold secret councils. Men 
come and go at every hour. They mean 
no good.” 

“Watch carefully,” replied the Snow 
Hawk in an undertone. “And fear not: 
I am stronger than they think. I but 
pretend a weakness. . . . Magpie ap- 
proaches. Go now, and be alert.” 

As the warrior took his leave, Magpie 
drew nearer, well pleased by Kioga’s ad- 
vanced recovery, to speak to him in soft- 
ened mood. “The night is warm. Let 
us ride,” said she; and willingly Kioga 



KIOGA OF THE WILDERNESS 


105 



accompanied her out a way upon a high 
ridge commanding a view of the village. 

It was dusk on the prairie, the hour of 
rest and ease. Close above the tents a 
hazy scarf of blue was hanging — smoke 
from within the lodges. As darkness fell, 
the skin tents glowed redly with the 
supper fires. The air was crystalline and 
wonderfully transparent. Arcturus shone 
down in blazing splendor. Sirius soon 
joined the watchfires of the immortals, 
green-white. Then out came Vega, dia- 
mond-blue and cold as ice, and Betel- 
geuse, orange with age and slow decline ; 
then Capella — a liquid yellow pearl, and 
Aldebaran, glowing steadily like a blot 
of phosphor in the sky. 

To their ears came the sad chanting of 
the Old Warriors Society, and the musi- 
cal notes of heralds’ voices rose and fell 
in regular rhythm as they moved among 
the lodges. At Kioga’s side the gray 
stallion nuzzled his arm and sent forth 
a neigh, long-drawn and silver-noted, 
across the swelling prairie. 

Magpie’s talk was of matters closest 
to her heart, the welfare of her scattered 
tribes. 

“I am the Magpie,” she said in hoarse 
and quivering tones; “I have gone to 
war, counted coups, taken scalps. But I 


am old. My bones grow heavy. My 
voice weakens, since some no longer lis- 
ten, as of old. ’Tis time I named a chief 
to fill my place.” 

Foreseeing the trend her thoughts were 
taking, Kioga made as if to speak. She 
gestured him to silence, and continued: 

“Among our people the woman owns 
the lodge and all within it. She owns 
the children, the tribal lands. Blood 
kinship is traced through her line, and 
she selects candidates for chiefs of clan 
and tribe.” 

Pausing a moment, she sat staring 'into 
the distance. Then again the hoarse 
monotone of her voice continued: “You 
are my only son. You are young, but 
you are wise, cunning as the wolf. You 
have been back with us but a few moons. 
Yet already your name is like a torch 
borne in the dark. . . . Respect to the 
aged — wait until I finish 1 I have named 
your name before the council. We shall 
see tomorrow night what comes of that ! 
Ehu — now speak, for I have done!” 

But Kioga was past speaking. In- 
tending daily to clear himself, daily he 
had found himself deeper involved in 
his role of Black Shield. Because he had 
come to love and respect old Magpie, 
that role had seemed all the more blame- 




106 


THE BLUE BOOK! MAGAZINE 


worthy. Yet he who shrank from no 
pain inflicted on himself, drew back from 
giving pain to this lonely old matron who 
walked so proudly through life. 

Constantly assuring himself that today 
would be the last of the imposture, each 
day had found him postponing revela- 
tion, until at last he had decided to carry 
it out to the end. He would perform 
such deeds as would wipe out what slight 
wrong existed in permitting this be- 
reaved old mother to think him her son. 
But now — 

The voice of Magpie recalled him : i 

“Say you nothing to this honor?” 

“Mother Magpie,” he answered solemn- 
ly, “this I say: Tomorrow morning you 
will do me honor. Tomorrow night you 
will stone me from your village.” 

I N amazement she looked at him. Then 
her hearty laughter at what she took 
to be a joke, carried back to the village. 

For Kioga wielded, by tacit consent, a 
power second only to that of Magpie her- 
self. Admitted to blood-brotherhood in 
the war-fraternities, he knew all their 
secrets. Never before had the fortunes 
of the Wa-Kanek run so high, nor the 
herds swelled to their present dimensions. 

Where war and individual valor were 
the only sources of social standing, he 
had in a few moons risen to high place. 
And on the morrow, said Magpie, he 
would be nominated to succeed her. And 
yet he was not a happy man, for reasons 
which deprive many another of content- 
ment: he could not foresee the future, 
nor forget the past. 

How were the Shoni doing? What of 
Kias, the noble-hearted friend of other 
days? What of Heladi the beautiful, 
and Tokala, whom he had left in her 
care ? What of James Munro, that guide 
and mentor of his day9 in civilization? 
But above all, what of Beth La Salle, 
memory of whom linked him to another 
way of life altogether? These were 
thoughts which had crowded one another 
during the long hours of his recovery, as 
now. 

“Ehul” said Magpie at long last. “A 
warrior thinks of some one far away.” 

Kioga started, as before when this 
keen old woman had seemed to read his 
very mind. 

“Farther than the stars, O Mother,” 
he answered gravely. 

“Go, then, and bring her here. I’ll 
give my tent, my herds and all I own to 
make her welcome.” 

“It cannot be,” said Kioga quietly. 


“Cannot? That from you, who slew 
Twenty Man and brought all our vic- 
tories to the Wa-Kanek I Do I hear 
aright ?” 

“Some things may not be done, 
Mother. Man cannot shoot down the 
stars with his arrows, nor cast his noose 
about the sun.” 

“Is she then so out of reach?” won- 
dered Magpie. Then, violently: “Bah! 
Take a hundred horsemen— take five 
hundred ! — and go for her. If any stand 
in your way, strike them down. If even 
then she will not come, drag her by the 
hair, ehu ! That’s how I was won ! ” 

Kioga could not forbear smiling at her 
vehemence, but — 

“How bright the stars this night I ” he 
answered evasively. 

Magpie snorted, and grumbling, left 
him. A man must be a fool who dreamed 
of onl-y one, when ten willing wives 
might be had to keep his lodge ! 

Kioga did not immediately follow, but 
rode farther out to water his horse along 
a wooded stream-bank. Dismounting, 
he bent to cup a handful of liquid to his 
own lips. As he did so the image of a 
human head — not his own — appeared on 
the still moonlit pool below him. 

Giving no sign that he observed, 
Kioga calculated the angles of reflection 
while drinking, and rose to remount. 
Directing his horse casually past the 
thicket which concealed a lurker, when 
near the spot he released the reins and 
dropped unexpectedly upon a hidden 
warrior. 

Grunting in surprise, the Indian sought 
to strike with his knife. But in an in- 
stant Kioga’s hand was at his throat, one 
knee at his breast, while he disarmed the 
stranger. 

Recognizing him by headdress and 
face-markings as a Shoni of the Tugari 
tribe, Kioga spoke in the man’s own 
tongue. 

“What seek you on Wa-Kanek hunt- 
ing-grounds, Tugari ?” 

“Who are you who know my tribe and 
tongue?” gasped the other. 

“Whom seek you?” repeated Kioga. 

“I seek the Snow Hawk, rumored to be 
alive among the Wa-Kanek,” answered 
the Shoni brave. 

K IOGA permitted him to glimpse his 
features in a better light. “Whose 
face is mine?” 

The Indian started. “I would know 
you anywhere! Have you never heard 
men speak of Wehoka?’’ 


KIOGA OF THE WILDERNESS 107 


“I recall you not, warrior,” said 
Kioga slowly : “but no matter. How go 
things among the Shoni?” 

“Ill — very ill,” said Wehoka heavily. 
“The Long Knives have risen up again. 
White-skinned men have come among 
them.” . 

It was Kioga’s turn to start. “White 
men! Speak carefully, Wehoka. What 
manner of men be these?” 

“White of skin and pale of eye — not> 
unlike the Snow Hawk,” answered We- 
hoka. “They dwell in a mighty place 
which they call ‘fort’ — and fight with 
weapons that blaze and thunder.” 

“By what names are they called?” de- 
manded Kioga swiftly. 

“One known as Swift Hand leads 
them,” said Wehoka. “And he sends 
the Snow Hawk this ! ’’—drawing from 
his pouch a roll of birch-bark, with this 
note scrawled thereon: 

To Kioga — (Lincoln Rand): 

Dear Friend: 

Rumor has it that you are still alive. 
This comes to you by Wehoka. There is 
no time to tell you all that has happened 
since you lejt America. We are among 
the Shoni. Dan and Beth La Salle are 
here. We are in desperate straits. 

If this reaches you too late, you will find 
our last messages and keepsakes to you 
buried seventeen paces from the corner 
of the south wall. A notched log marks 
the place. 

If you live and can aid us, use utmost 
caution in approaching. We are surround- 
ed, cut off from our ship, and threatened 
momentarily by capture. 

Wehoka has instructions to seek aid 
among the northern tribes, who are less 
influenced by the Long Knives. He can 
best tell you of his success or failure. We 
pray for the impossible in hoping this will 
reach you. Meanwhile we place our faith 
in God and the resources He has given us. 

James Munro. 

Momentarily staggered by this as- 
tounding news, Kioga swiftly gathered 
his wits. These tidings were almost un- 
believable, and yet the note was un- 
deniably authentic. Turning to Wehoka : 

“What of the upper tribesmen — did 
you meet with them ?” 

“Yes. Two canoes wait my return at 
the three forks of the Hiwasi.” 

“It is good, Wehoka. I know the 
place well. Go as you came. Await me 
there and recruit others if more warriors 
may be found.” 


“A hi I” said Wehoka eagerly. “Delay 
not. Time is short.” 

Parting without another word, the two 
went their opposite ways, Kioga mount- 
ing and spurring toward Magpie’s vil- 
lage. To aid those in the fort, quick 
action was needed. 

When still some distance from the vil- 
lage, he glimpsed a small fire in a hol- 
low on the plain. An unusual number of 
shadows were grouped around it, but 
whether friends or foes, he could not tell. 

Approaching stealthily, by the dim 
light he first descried the face of Wolf 
Jaw. Instantly suspicious, Kioga circled 
the hollow in search of the means to ap- 
proach within hearing, which he found 
in the narrow ridge behind which the 
group were hidden from the village. 

W RITHING nearer, the Snow Hawk 
heard the harsh voice of Wolf Jaw. 
“Hitherto,” Wolf Jaw was saying, “he 
has deceived us. But his hour is come. 
Who this Black Shield is you all now 
know. He is an impostor. Doubtless he 
slew Magpie’s true son. And therefore 
I say he must die, and with him those 
who are close to him. And if it comes to 
that — if even old Magpie stands against 
us — ” He left the sentence unfinished. 

A hubbub of mingled protest and agree- 
ment rose; for Magpie was both loved 
and feared. At last, however, a young 
and fiery warrior, whose name was Fall- 
ing Star rose and spoke: “I too weary of 
the Magpie’s counsel. What Wolf Jaw 
says is good for all the tribe, I think. 
If need be, I will take her life.” 

Listening, Kioga bethought himself of 
what he had so recently learned from 
Wehoka. Time was of the essence, no 
matter what he did. But to leave his 
friends unarmed against the secret plot- 
tings of Wolf Jaw was not be considered. 

Might not the fort already have fal- 
len? Might not its inhabitants even now 
all be dead ? The answers to these things 
were in doubt. But there was no doubt 
as to the fate of Magpie and Kioga’s 
friends. At any moment Wolf Jaw 
might bare his tomahawks. . . At once 
Kioga crawled back to his horse and 
rode straight to the village. 

What immediate action Wolf Jaw may 
have intended was interrupted unwit- 
tingly by Magpie herself, who this night 
gave a great feast in honor of Kioga’s 
recovery. Following the feast came a 
parade on horseback. The fires were fed 
with buffalo chips until they roared hot- 
ly. Prancing horses moved in and out 


108 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGA2IHE 



“All that I pos- 
sess belongs to 
Black Shield. , . . 
I ask your for- 
giveness — and 
tonight I bid 
you farewell.” 


among the tapering lodges, to the tune 
of singing and the heavy beat of thump- 
ing drums. 

The eyes of old Magpie were on Kioga 

E roudly. Bareheaded, astride the finest 
orse on all the Nato’wan plain, he rode 
as if sprung from his mount’s own spine. 
Its tail and mane were hung with painted 
plumes; beneath its saddle of fine buf- 
falo-hide trimmed with elk-skin was a 
back-protector of antelope, worked in 
multicolored horsehair designs ; the rings 
and cinchas were of polished copper ; the 


stirrup leathers were draped with gleam- 
ing weasel-tails; even the breast-straps 
worked with rare silver proclaimed the 
high station of the rider. 

Enviously, and with eyes gleaming in 
anticipation of Black Shield’s downfall, 
Wolf Jaw looked on. By prearrangement 
he and his band but awaited the moment 
of Kioga’s elevation to high chieftainship 
to strike the blow which would fell this 
upstart and all who supported him. . . . 

When the parade had ended, came pres- 
entation of the symbol of high chief* 




KIOGA OF THE WILDERNESS 


109 


tainship — a certain medicine-shield noted 
as an heirloom, handed down from one 
generation to the next. 

Forth from the lips of Gro-Gan’ rolled 
the sonorous syllables of ancient Wa- 
Kanek, impressive as the Latin of the 
Roman Church. 

“O Black Shield, I speak to your heart. 
Behold this shield of your forefathers. 
It hung before the lodge when you were 
born. It shaded your eyes when you 
grew in the cradle-board. And so with 
many chiefs before you. By the power 
of this shield you become the Keeper of 
the Herds, the First Hunter, Chief Over 
All Chiefs. So long as you hold to it, no 
harm will befall you. It is wakan — 
sacred, possessed of great power. Take 
it in your hands. Bring only honor to 
this ancient shield.” 

With affection and pride in his voice 
at being able thus to honor this friend of 
many battles and adventures, Gro-Gan’ 
held forth the priceless heirloom. No 
slightest sound disturbed the council, 
save 1 the rustle of rich robes and the 
click of bone ornaments. 

K IOGA turned to face the council. 

His face seemed oddly white be- 
neath its summer bronze. He did not 
touch the extended shield, but answered 
Gro-Gan’ thus : 

“Not many moons ago I came among 
you, O Councilors. You accepted me as 
Black Shield, the son of Magpie. I shrank 
from telling Magpie that Black Shield 
was dead. I thought to replace him in 
her heart, and by my deeds rise to high 
place among you. But the office of heredi- 
tary chief is too great. I cannot take the 
sacred shield, for I have no Wa-Kanek 
blood. Nor am I Shoni, though I held 
high place among them. I am of another 
race, of white-skinned men, dwelling 
where the sun sleeps.” 

Completely dazed, the council stared 
at him. Not a muscle in the faces of all 
that circle moved, but amazement looked 
from every eye. In a deathly silence 
Kioga concluded : 

“All that I possess belongs to Black 
Shield. My horses I give to Mother 
Magpie — long may she rule! My tent 
and all my robes and weapons I give to 
my loyal friends.” One by one he re- 
moved his ceremonial ornaments, strip- 
ping down to waist-cloth, and piling all 
his vestments before him. “Thus I amend 
my offense to you who honored me. Black 
Shield is dead. He died a brave man, 
laughing at his pain. I who used his 


name was once your greatest enemy, 
known to the Shoni as Kioga the Snow 
Hawk, a chieftain. Now I reduce my- 
self to nothing. I ask your forgiveness 
— and tonight I bid you farewell.” 

Pausing an instant before Magpie, 
Kioga searched her face. It remained ex- 
pressionless, but haggard beyond words, 
the eyes tightly closed. 

Disarmed by this unexpected stroke, 
Wolf Jaw and his cohorts sat gaping 
with the rest. But Kioga had not yet 
done with them. 

“If my deeds be adjudged wrong,” he 
continued, “what of those dozen men who 
came with hidden tomahawks to do mur- 
der at this council?” 

At these words Wolf Jaw went white to 
the lips, and all his confederates with 
him, for well they knew themselves but a 
minority in this assemblage. Relent- 
lessly Kioga went on : 

“Rise, Wolf Jaw — and those twelve to 
either side of you. Rise and throw 
aside your robes, that all may see how 
you prepared to slay not only Black 
Shield, but Mother Magpie too. Rise Up 
and show your teeth, wolves!” 

A moment the accused chief sat 
stripped of poise and self-command, re- 
turning the Snow Hawk’s gaze as a viper 
might return an eagle’s. Already White 
Bear and other ranking chiefs were get- 
ting up, suspicious of treachery at what 
was to have been a peaceful celebration. 

Even now the furor might have died, 
reparations been made, and the incident 
overlooked. But Falling Star, the fire- 
brand among Wolf Jaw’s followers, rose 
from where he sat near old Magpie and 
sprang toward her with brandishing 
tomahawk. In a moment the council was 
in an uproar, during which Wolf Jaw and 
his little band were swiftly overwhelmed 
and stripped of their arms. A hundred 
chiefs of every rank rallied round the 
sacred person of Magpie. 

With satisfaction Kioga saw the enemy 
exposed beyond all further hope of in- 
juring those attached to him. And amid 
the general confusion he disappeared. 

CHAPTER XXXI 
Powder and Lead 

I MMEDIATELY on quitting the coun- 
cil, Kioga turned his steps toward his 
own tent. The gray stallion, saddled and 
in full caparison he led away by the rein, 
tying it before Magpie’s lodge. Return- 
ing for his rope and weapons, he ap- 


110 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


proached the village herd, roped out a 
horse and mounted. Uproar, he expect- 
ed, must follow his revelation ; he would 
depart before it had time to begin. With- 
out a word to those who followed wher- 
ever he went, he rode off in an easterly 
direction, leaving the village behind. 

For several hours he traveled at a rapid 
gait. A Wa-Kanek party passed him go- 
ing in the opposite direction, but he care- 
fully circled to avoid the meeting. Echoes 
of the Brave Heart song came to him 
from the traveling band. He listened for 
the familiar words: 

Moon-Woman shuts her sleepy eyes. . . . 

Hai-yeh’ ho! Hai-yeh-ho! 

We’ll take the foeman by surprise. . . . 

Hai-yeh’ ho! Hai-yeh-ho! 

The time is come; we steal away. . . . 

Hai-yeh’ ho! Hai-yeh-ho 1 

To raid their tents at break of day. . . . 

Hai-yeh’ ho! Hai-yeh-ho! 

And carry many shields away. . . . 

Hoh! Hohl Hoh! Hai-yeh-eho! 

I 

The sound of the chanting died away 
far back upon the plains. How things 
had changed since these warriors had 
gone forth at his bidding! Swiftly Kioga 
continued on his way, and finally after 
many hours he arrived where begin the 
mountains which gird the Shoni realm. 

Removing the fine saddle, he gave the 
horse its liberty. He hid the saddle in a 
deep unoccupied cavern, rolled a great 
stone across the entrance and began the 
climb which would carry him across the 
mountain divide separating the domains 
of plainsmen and forest-dwellers. 

Topping this divide at last, he found 
himself looking down upon that vast 
mountainous area north of the Shoni 
strongholds. Below him was home, the 
forest, the mountains he loved. He drew 
in an exultant breath. 

But behind him, far out across the 
plains, old Magpie stood before her tent. 
The silver stallion was tied to the door- 
flap. All its caparison gleamed in the 
firelight. Across its back the leathern 
stirrups were tied, and at the saddle horn 
hung three broken arrows in token of 
Kioga’s farewell. Near by stood Me- 
Kon-Agi, Gro-Gan’ and all the chiefs and 
great warriors of the tribe the Magpie 
ruled. 

And as she stood quivering, unable to 
speak, men turned away. For such a 
thing had only once been seen before — 
when she thought her son had returned 
from captivity: Two great tears rolled 
silently down her wrinkled cheeks. . . . 


High in a rocky eyrie Kioga slept an 
hour ; and in the morning he knew again 
the touch of cool leaves parting to admit 
him into the green chambers of the damp 
pine-scented forest. Traveling almost 
continuously, snatching only a little sleep 
now and then, the Snow Hawk came at 
last to a familiar scene — the torn area 
marking the landslide which had so near- 
ly carried him to his death. And skirting 
the rubble at its lower end, he came un- 
expectedly upon a curious structure made 
of stones, the work of human hands. At 
its top two hawks had built a nest, and 
defied him to draw nearer. 

Wondering what had inspired the erec- 
tion of such a monument, he scanned it 
intently, and came to a wooden slab bear- 
ing this inscription burned into it : 

Raised to the Memory of Kioga 
Chief of All the Shoni Tribes 
Who Perished in the Landslide 
From which These Stones Are Taken 
Erected by Those Who Sought Him 
Long and Faithfully 
Rest in Peace 

Recent lightning had struck the rock- 
pile, obliterating the names of all who 
had subscribed to the memorial save 
that of James Munro, which appeared in 
a lower corner of the slab. 

F AR up the mountain-side a storm 
gathered. Lightning licked from cloud 
to earth. Weary with long and restless 
travel, and conscious of the drafts the 
morrow would make upon his strength, 
Kioga turned westward toward his old 
cave. There he would sleep out the 
storm. 

Climbing the steep trail, he pushed in 
the door, entered and kindling a blaze, 
with his fire-bow, made a light. Glancing 
about him, something lying on the little 
shelf caught his attention — a finger-ring 
of gold, through which was thrust a lit- 
tle cylinder of birchbark. With narrow- 
ing eyes he drew forth the curl of bark, 
smoothed it, held it to the light and read : 

I came all the way from America, with 
Dan and James Munro, to tell you what 
I should have said before, had you not 
left us so suddenly. Since fate wills I 
shall never see you again alive, 1 take 
this means of telling you, instead. I have 
loved you from the first, and will to the 
end. I leave this note and this ring. 
Though you will never read the one nor 
wear the other, it will always comfort 
me to know that you would find them 
here — if you could only return. — Beth 


KIOGA OF THE WILDERNESS 


111 


Dazzled by the message contained in 
that note, Kioga’s weariness vanished. 
From that moment rest and shelter 
ceased to exist for him. Rushing quick- 
ly but methodically from place to place, 
he took up a short but deadly bow, a 
quiver of arrows and belted on a knife. 
Then he plunged forth into the storm. 

Where every other living thing had 
denned up for the duration of the down- 
pour, the Snow Hawk fled through the 
forest with the speed and directness of 
the hir'd for which he was named. His 
way was often illumined by the lightning, 
but at other times he threaded the track- 
less mazes of the forest by instinct alone, 
speeding toward the river rendezvous 
with Wehoka and his canoemen. . . . 
Morning and storm’s end found him still 
traveling, tireless as a steel automaton. 

I T was now that season of the polar 
year when the daylight wanes, giving 
way to the enduring gloom of Arctic 
winter. The forest depths were hung 
with velvet robes of darkness, yet along 
the river on whose banks Kioga moved 
there was light enough to see by for a few 
hours daily. Pausing at dusk to sate his 
hunger with late juicy berries growing 
along the stream, he suddenly caught 
the tell-tale purl of water at the prow 
of a moving canoe. Lying silent be- 
neath the thorny foliage, he heard voices 
and sought to identify one of several as 
that of Wehoka, Munro’s messenger. 

And as he crouched listening, some- 
thing long and coiling came to life be- 
side his arm. A gleaming triangular head 
reared slowly up, forked tongue darting 
in and out. Glistening lights reflected 
from the scaly geometric markings on a 
snake’s lean back. Not ten inches from 
Kioga’s eyes the cowled reptile fixed 
them with its own lidless terrible stare. 
The flicker of an eyelash, an exhaled 
breath, would draw an instant poison- 
stroke. 

But Kioga neither blinked nor breathed. 
Like a creature without nerves he lay 
utterly still, both watching the snake and 
listening for the Indians’ voices. Present- 
ly the reptile lowered its hideous head, 
and gliding slowly across Kioga’s out- 
stretched arm, flowed off into the thickets. 
And in another moment he heard the un- 
mistakable voice of Wehoka. Rising 
quietly to his full stature, with upraised 
hands, he said : 

“Peace to you, warriors 1” 

Unluckily, he had not counted upon 
the alarm into which his sudden appear- 


ance would throw men so keyed up with 
excitement. Hardly had the words left 
his iips, when two spears and a heavy 
club flew at him. 

Nothing could better have, conveyed 
the sanguinary spirit of those times. Men 
struck first and parleyed later— if pos- 
sible. And when the Indians realized 
their mistake, the damage was done. 
Their spears had passed harmlessly into 
the bank. But the club had struck more 
nearly true. As they came upon him 
Kioga lay felled by the flying missile. 

“We have killed him!” declared We- 
hoka, looking upon the fallen Snow 
Hawk. 

“Not so easily,” came a voice as Kioga 
slowly sat up to look around him. Quick 
hands would have raised him, but the 
Snow Hawk rose unaided, scorning assist- 
ance. 

“I have been long coming. It may be 
that we are too late. But dip blades, 
warriors ! Let us be on our way ! ” 

In an instant, propelled by sinewy 
hands, the long-boat leaped downstream. 

CHAPTER XXXII 
In Extremis 

A T Fort Talking Raven, matters had 
. reached a critical stage. Ever 
closer shrank the ring of Half Mouth’s 
warriors. Ever more fraught with peril 
were the hunters’ forays into the sur- 
rounding wilderness in search of game 
to feed those hungry mouths within the 
overcrowded fort. The hidden canoes, 
which Munro’s warriors had been wont 
to use in obtaining fresh supplies of iron 
sand, crude sulphur and saltpeter, had 
been discovered and captured by the 
enemy. 

Yet the fort still managed to maintain 
the appearance that all. was well. 

In the arms-room a strange array of 
weapons had taken form. There were 
short thrusting spears, and long lances 
for manning the walls, and loose-coupled 
military flails hastily designed for use in 
the event the enemy again attempted to 
storm the fort. But as yet the defenses 
remained impregnable to all assault from 
without. 

No small part of Munro’s time was 
taken up in caring for his wounded. 
In came Eccowa, having successfully 
run the gantlet of lurking savages in his 
trip from the Narwhal to the fort with 
messages. Half his scalp hanging down 
upon one shoulder evidenced his close 


112 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 



passage with the knives of the foe. A 
dexterous flip, a score of stitches using 
deer-gut to close the wound — and Ec- 
cowa was pleading to be sent with further 
communications. 

Kias himself, hunting in the forest near 
by, came fainting into the fort, mauled 
by a snow-leopard before its den of 
young. The wounds were gashed, given 
a liberal sprinkle of permanganate in the 
incisions and fang-punctures. An hour 
later Kias was standing guard again at 
the north wall. 

And this entry from Munro’s diary of 
those dark days : 

Brave jellows, these savage stoics! Yes- 
terday Cimita came in, his hand a mass of 
lacerated tissue. Wolf-bite. Beast killed 
by companions. Wound gangrenous over- 
night. Amputated above wrist, stump 
cauterized in boiling deer-fat. Healing 
satisfactorily. Cimita went unconscious 
with pain. First question on regaining 
senses: “How will / shoot my bow?” 
Hanson our carpenter is making him a 
wooden hand. 

Thus Munro’s heroic surgery, aided 
by the unflinching stoicism of his pa- 
tients, saved many who otherwise must 
have joined those buried beside the east 
wall, each with a terse epitaph burned 
into a peeled wall-log above his grave. 

Meanwhile came word from Barry Ed- 
wards that on board the Narwhal repairs 
had been effected. Unfortunately, fire 
had broken out in the galley and eaten 
through a sail-locker, destroying most of 
their spare canvas. But fresh sails had 
been made by Kamotok of the dried in- 
testines of whatever deer or sea-lions 
they kiled in the ship’s vicinity. 

The falconet sent from the fort had 
been mounted near the forecastle hatch ; 


and a cradle was already constructed aft 
to receive the larger cannon Munro had 
promised to send later in the week. All 
powder and ball previously sent was safe- 
ly stored on board. 

Everything, indeed, was well on board 
the Narwhal ; but at Fort Talking Raven, 
several odd happenings gave Munro cause 
for troubled thought. The first was the 
interception of several additional new- 
made smoothbores intended for the Nar- 
whal. These, along with a large supply 
of gunpowder, were seized by Half 
Mouth’s warriors almost within view of 
the fort walls. Half of Munro’s men 
bearing these supplies for the ship did 
not return. 

An hour or two later fire broke out in 
the east tower, and was extinguished at 
a price of almost their entire water-sup- 
ply. And thus far none of their borings 
had tapped another source of supply. 

D OZING on his rifle one night, Flash- 
pan was suddenly awakened by a 
jerk upon his mustache, and a nervous 
little simian hand tugging persistently at 
one ear. 

“Dang ye, monk — that whisker aint no 
bell-rope!” he muttered irritably; but 
on feeling the tremble of the little body 
on his shoulder, peered squinting intent- 
ly out into the dark. “Hist — what was 
that? Oh, bah! Ye’ve got me nervous, 
Placer. Owls, ye little coward, owls — 
hootin’ like goblins, back an’ forth. A 
fine sojer y’are, Placer — a fine soj — ” 
Once again Flashpan went silent, lis- 
tening. From the darkness came a 
sound, faint but unmistakable, of several 
rolling pebbles. “A better sojer than 
me,” amended the miner very softly. 
“Suthin’s a-prowlin’ out thar — bigger’n 
an owl. But whut — er who?” Flashpan 
fastened his gaze upon the blackness. 
Then urgently: “Oho! Injins, b’gum. 
An’ I cain’t leave me post. But you can. 
Go git that leetle Injin pal of yours, 
Tokala — git Tokala, monk! Bring ’im 
here quick ! ” 

A moment Placer hovered hesitant; 
next he turned a doubtful cartwheel in 
the darkness ; then suddenly he vanished 
like a dark flash, swinging down the 
inner wall and galloping back to where 
Tokala slept beside his leather water- 
bucket. A moment later the boy, wide- 
awake and led by the monkey, appeared 
stealthily at Flashpan’s side. 

“Son,” whispered the miner swiftly, 
“bad bizness is in the wind. Injins — 
sneakin’ up toward the spring. I had it 


KIOGA OF THE WILDERNESS 


113 


covered with the falconet. But the pow- 
der’s soaked. Somebody poured water 
into it — an’ she won’t shoot. Go wake 
Doc Munro an’ Kias an’ Dan; tell ’em 
— quick — whiles I git this gun in workin’ 
order.” 

Without a word Tokala vanished. . . . 
Flashpan heard the sound of guarded 
movements back within the fort. A few 
moments later three dusky shadows 
slipped out in the shelter of the inner 
wall. They were Dan La Salle, Kias the 
Shoni, and Tengma, his foremost warrior. 
Armed with pistols, tomahawks and a 
smoothbore apiece, they crept toward the 
spring, concealed by the log sluice. Un- 
noticed, behind these three came another, 
slower shadow — old Menewa, gripping a 
tomahawk and eager to aid in the de- 
fense of the fort which sheltered his 
daughter Heladi and others of his friends 
and loved ones. 

Flashpan, meanwhile, worked franti- 
cally to empty and reload his falconet. 

Menewa had not yet reached the spring 
when the first of the invaders climbed 
up the opposite side of the ridge, closely 
followed by seven others. Straight into 
their faces Dan and his two Indians 
fired their pieces, flinging aside the 
smoothbores to blaze away with their 
several single-shot pistols, before using 
their clubs and tomahawks. Surprised 
in their attempt to divert the spring, the 
savages faltered, but only momentarily. 
Though five had fallen at the volleys of 
the defenders, as many now replaced 
them. There in the moonlight, in full 
view of all those in the fort, a fierce fight 
raged, hand-to-hand. 

F ROM above Beth and Heladi were 
watching the struggle with dilated 
eyes. Suddenly the Indian girl uttered 
a sharp cry. Brave old Menewa had ap- 
peared suddenly to reinforce Dan and his 
men, swinging right forcefully with his 
long spiked club. But in his eagerness 
the old man overreached, stumbled on the 
precarious footing and went down. Si- 
multaneously a hostile warrior rose be- 
side him, aiming a smashing blow at his 
skull. 

Using his gun as a club, Dan threw 
himself upon the enemy — struck, missed 
and went down before the blow intended 
for Menewa. But in falling he bore the 
savage also to his knees, and as his last 
conscious act drove his fist wrist-deep 
into the Indian’s stomach. That, curious- 
ly, was the blow which ended the battle 
of the spring. The hostiles, having failed 



in their surprise, gave over the attack 
and retreated. And as Kias and his war- 
riors retired, bearing Dan between them 
and with Menewa following, Flashpan 
let go with his reloaded falconet, throwing 
a shot among the raiders. Thereafter the 
guns were booming again, hastening the 
departure of the enemy. 

Sick with fear, Beth saw Dan brought 
in, covered with blood. Kneeling at his 
side, Munro examined the great swelling 
where the club had struck, touched pulse 
and heart, and reassured her. 

“Hard hit, and no mistake. But with 
care he’ll be all right. Keep cold packs 
on that swelling.” 

And so it happened that, groping his 
way out of the unconscious state, Dan 
La Salle found slim brown fingers mov- 
ing gently over the bandage round his 
head, which was pillowed in Heladi ’s lap. 
With wonder he saw that her cheeks 
were wet as she bent above him, and at 
that his heart gave a mighty bound. For 
never until now had she given any sign of 
returning his love. 

Feeling him stir, she raised his head 
against her breast, with some little mur- 
mur of endearment. Observing them, 
Menewa and Beth exchanged smiles. 
Beth’s was crooked and quickly gone. 
Heladi and Dan had each other; but 
who was there who could ever occupy the 
place left vacant in her own heart and 
life? 

Until now the perils of their situation 
had forced other matters into the back- 
ground of her mind, and better so f for in 
some measure she had reconciled herself 
to Kioga’s passing. But the growing at- 
tachment between Dan and Heladi 
opened the old wound. Heavy of heart 
she turned away and went toward where 
the fort’s injured were sheltered, that she 


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might forget her grief in allaying the 
pain of others. . . . 

Although the spring was preserved, a 
question still remained: How were the 
enemy learning of their plans, and of 
conditions at the fort? Surely not from 
outside. More probably from within. 

J UST after dawn the following morning, 
the boom of a cannon came from 
the cliff across the river. Almost simul- 
taneously a ball screamed into the fort, 
struck the wall, rebounded — fortunately 
injuring no one. 

How had the enemy obtained that weap- 
on? The question was soon answered, 
in part; for a hurried check-up showed 
that one of the falconets and a quantity 
of powder and balls were missing. 

All that day Flashpan estimated ranges 
and gave shot for shot in an attempt to 
destroy the enemy battery. His efforts 
were useless. Slemp altered his position 
after each shot. The quarters for women 
and children had thereafter to be kept 
closed, lest some wanderer be struck by 
this new menace. 

More of the traitor’s work was now 
discovered. When Flashpan went to the 
powder-room that night, the door was 
ajar. Instantly alert, the miner drew 
his pistol, entered cautiously, and dis- 
covered that of all their powder supply, 
scarce enough remained for twenty demi- 
cannon rounds. And several smoothbores 
had also vanished from the gun-room. 

Running up on the rampart to inform 
Munro of this misfortune, he found the 
scientist and Kias intent upon something 
near the west wall. 

“Your eyes are sharp, Flashpan,” said 
Munro. “What do you make of that 
spark up at the spring ?” 

The miner turned his eyes upon it. 
For a moment he too was puzzled by a 
tiny speck of light, moving like a firefly 
toward the source of their water. In an 
instant realization flashed upon them. 
“A fuse ! ” cried Munro. 

“Aye!” roared Flashpan. “And half 
our powder’s been sneaked out ! ” 
Munro’s face paled at information 
which gave that spark a suddenly terrible 
meaning. 

“Flashpan, they’ve planted a charge 
at the spring ! If it explodes, we’re with- 
out water.” 

“Leave it to me, sir,” began Flashpan 
with his customary readiness to assume 
any responsibility. His voice was drowned 
in a terrific detonation at the spring. A 
great ledge of rock slipped into the fort, 


showering earth and stones down on the 
enclosures. The primitive sluiceways 
which conveyed water into the main 
storage vessels did not fall. But the flow 
of fluid through them ceased ; the spring 
was destroyed, the fort waterless, save 
for what rain-water might be caught. 

A desperate council was in discussion 
of plans to ferret out the traitor, when 
there came a muffled explosion. The 
heavy door of the arms-room burst out, 
torn from its hinges. A billow of smoke 
rolled over a dead body blackened by 
powder burns. Flashpan’s search was 
ended before it had well begun. Eccowa 
lay dead, a coil of barken fuse still 
clutched tightly in one hand. The traitor 
was exposed at last; and the eye of the 
enemy, within the fort, was shut. . . . 

Across the gorge, however, separating 
fort from river -bank, a gnawing fire had 
long burned against the bole of a cer- 
tain immense tree rooted near the cliff’s 
edge and slanting precariously outward 
over the river. 

Hour by hour the burn, fed and tended 
faithfully by Branner, Slemp’s confeder- 
ate, cut deeper through the mighty trunk. 
At last Slemp ordered the fire extin- 
guished, waiting on a coming storm. 
Glancing across the river he rubbed his 
hands gleefully. 

“Let ’em guard the front door,” he 
muttered. “We’ll enter by the servants’ 
entrance, and serve up somethin’ they 
aint expectin’.” 

The storm struck swiftly, a typical 
sudden uprising of the elements, accom- 
panied by great resounding thunder- 
bursts and knives of gleaming lightning 
stabbing through the darkness. A wall 
of wind advanced toward the fort, bend- 
ing the mighty forest trees like weed- 
stalks. 

Clutching an out-jutting ledge with 
both hands, Slemp watched the weakened 
tree-trunk intently, wiping rain from his 
eyes. As the wind pushed, it leaned far 
out across the stream. Then with a snap- 
ping, splintering sound the trunk and 
roots gave way; a second later the dis- 
tant crown crashed down on a ledge of 
rock across the stream on the island. The 
moat about the fort was bridged. 

W ITHIN Fort Ta]king Raven all 
were busy, filling skins with rain- 
water; and amid the uproar of the ele- 
ments the crash of the tree bridging the 
river passed almost unnoticed. Some- 
where near another forest giant had fal- 
len— that was all. 


KIOQA OF THE WILDERNESS 


115 


But that was not all. Halfway across 
the fallen bole, sixty warriors were com- 
ing cautiously, armed to the teeth. 
Nearing the fort, they were covered by 
the heavy foliage of the great tree’s 
crown. Thus a large force of the enemy 
had made the crossing before a yell 
from Kias warned the fort. Discovered, 
the Long Knives raised their fearful war- 
whoop, throwing the fort into a confusion 
of women and children running for shel- 
ter in the rooms below the walls, and 
warriors rushing to their arms. 

E MERGING startled from the hospital 
room, Munro looked on a sight that 
chilled his heart. Swarming into the 
fort from that seemingly unscalable riv- 
er-side wall, came Half-Mouth’s savages. 

Dismay — that terrible heart-sinking of 
one who knows not how he has been out- 
maneuvered — clutched at Munro momen- 
tarily. Massacre was within his walls. 

But at sight of what transpired Mun- 
ro’s old self-command returned. They 
were surprised, but far from beaten. 
From the south parapet his sentries 
poured in a galling fire upon the storming 
savages, dropping the entire front rank 
in their tracks. An instant later Kias 
and his warriors suddenly appeared, 
charging down upon the intruders and 
meeting them with their own kind of 
weapons. Fierce and sudden as was the 
attack, the resistance was even more fierce 
and more savage. From the towers the 
smoothbores spat smoke, flame and hot 
lead, doing dreadful execution at that 
range. On the south wall Flashpan 
trundled around his falconet. Aiming 
just above the opposite wall, he touched 
off a blast, and cleared it of every enemy 
with one rattling slash of iron slugs. 

Otowa, one of Kias’ warriors, leaped 
for another falconet, swung it round and 
trained it on the Long Knives and pulled 
the cord. Probably, however, the ball 
had rolled toward the muzzle, owing to 
the pitch of the slanting barrel ; at any 
rate, the gun burst with a terrible crash, 
killing Otowa with its flying fragments. 
This was their last casualty of the fight. 
For the ferocity and desperation of the 
defenders, coupled with the power of 
their smoothbores, proved too much for 
the invaders, who scattered and quit the 
fort as they had entered, leaving behind 
their dead. 

In the growing light of morning the 
bridge was clearly seen spanning the 
river; and at its far end Slemp had 
thrown up a breastwork of rubble and 


earth, commanding a view of the fort 
from the shelter of the immense stump. 

Dan and Hanson, equipped with iron 
axes, slipped forth under cover of the 
trunk and fell to chopping, in an at- 
tempt to loosen the bridge and cause it 
to fall. But it was a futile effort, pro- 
ductive of small result. The iron-hard 
wood of the tree dulled their inferior 
tools. And a charge of precious gun- 
powder, touched off during the follow- 
ing night, did little more than settle the 
crown of the tree more securely upon 
the wall, while decreasing the already 
scanty supply of powder. 

Flashfian next attempted to cut through 
the great trunk by bombarding it with 
his demi-cannon, but since the balls 
must be hurled aslant the fallen trunk, 
the damage was negligible, nor could the 
missiles do more than graze the enemy 
earthwork hidden behind it. After sev- 
eral further attempts Flashpan desisted. 

Long since, Munro had shipped his ac- 
cumulated treasure of robes and skins 
and scientific finds to the Narwhal. Last 
to go were his camera and carefully 
preserved films, and one cannon, their 
smallest. 

The night after the latest skirmish 
with the enemy brought final word from 
the Narwhal. Three of Kias’ most trust- 
ed Indians returned from the ship by 
trail and canoe, bringing with them one 
whose coming brought especial joy to 
Flashpan and his monkey. Placer was 
first to detect the presence of Nugget, 
the miner’s faithful dog, and he rode his 
old friend madly about the walls while 
all the fort laughed at their antics. 

Though the forest runners had pierced 
the warrior-cordon in the short period of 
laxity following the repulse of the red 
raiders, the Long Knives quickly re- 
newed their vigilance. Open to momen- 
tary attack, it was now clear that lacking 
ammunition and water, and unable to 
procure food, the fort could not much 
longer hold out against the besiegers. 

And at this desperate eleventh hour, 
Munro sent out his last messenger to the 
ship. Unwilling to risk losing Kias, he 
chose instead Chacma, a lean and taci- 
turn Wacipi warrior, true as steel, and 
penciled this note for the little crew on 
his hidden ship: 

My dear Barry: 

Your messages arrived and glad to learn 
that all is well with you. With us things 
are critical. The fort is now cut off. If 
this message reaches you, it will be a 


116 


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miracle. We can’t hold out much longer. 

1 tremble jor Miss La Salle and our wom- 
en and children if the savages attack us 
again in this condition. 

Ij you do not hear from us within ten 
days, this will be your authority to set 
sail, and return, ij possible, to America. 

A chart of the shoals and reefs is in my 
cabin. It would be useless jor you to at- 
tempt to come to our aid. A few days 
will see our finish, barring aid from the 
Almighty Himself. We are saving our 
last bullets for each other. 

We all send our best wishes. 

Munro. 

B EARING this message, Chacma de- 
parted secretly from the fort. But 
just before he had left, as it happened, 
scouts brought to Slemp and his white 
renegades information they had long 
awaited : the berth of the Narwhal had at 
last been discovered. . 

Knowing that the ship might change 
her location, but that the fort must re- 
main until they returned, the renegade 
whites set off for the coast, leaving the 
Indians under Half Mouth to maintain 
the siege. It was their intention to take 
possession of the Narwhal against the 
nearing hour when the fort must fall; 
having obtained Flashpan’s treasure for 
themselves, they would then leave the 
fort and its gallant defenders to the ten- 
der mercies of their Indian allies. 

So it came about that just as Chacma 
was drawing forth a dugout from its 
place of concealment in an under-shore 
cavern, the long-boat bearing Slemp and 
his men swept suddenly into view, pro- 
pelled by several muscular paint-streaked 
savages — Long Knives, by the paint- 
markings on faces and breasts. 

Slemp leveled his gun and spoke : 
“Halt, you! Stand where you are!” 
Wheeling, Chacma found several guns 
trained upon his heart. Recent experi- 
ence had taught him their killing power. 
In no doubt as to what would reward 
disobedience, and knowing how much 
depended upon his arrival at the Nar- 
whal with that message in his pouch, 
brave Chacma nevertheless sought to es- 
cape into the shore brush. 

Slemp’s gun cracked ; Chacma fell face 
forward into the underbrush as the ca- 
noe came upon him, bleeding from the 
head and by every evidence already a 
corpse. From his waist Slemp plundered 
the pouch. And presently he turned tri- 
umphantly to his companions, flourish- 
ing Munro’s message. 


“We’ve got ’em smartin’ in the fort,” 
he declared with gleaming eyes. “An’ 
here’s our passport onto the Narwhal 
We’ll take the ship first thing we do, and 
then come back and take the fort. Our 
luck is changed, boys 1 ” 

Attracted by sound of the shot, and 
flattened close against a cliff a hundred 
feet above, a narrow-eyed witness to the 
death of Chacma looked down upon the 
scene and sought vainly to overhear what 
the white men were saying. Now as the 
swift canoe forged downstream and out 
of sight, that lurking shadow dropped to 
the river beside the fallen Indian and 
sought for signs of life. 

Irked by the comparatively slow prog- 
ress of the Shoni canoes, Kioga had hours 
since taken to the river overhang for 
several miles; whereafter by a short 
route which avoided the longer windings 
of the river, he came upon the scene of 
Chacma’s downfall. Despite the appear- 
ance of death, the Indian still lived. 
Cold water at lips and temples revived 
him enough haltingly to answer the few 
questions Kioga put to him. Presently 
he could speak no more, and in a few 
minutes expired. And though Kioga 
had learned much, there were certain 
facts he had not uncovered. Chacma 
had not told whither he had been going 
when attacked; nor did the Indian live 
long enough to realize that he had been 
robbed of his message to the Narwhal. 
Had Kioga learned the contents of that 
note and the intentions of the renegade 
whites, matters would have gone alto- 
gether differently. 

As it was, Kioga put aside all thought 
of pursuing the canoe bearing the whites, 
and turned back to intercept his Shoni 
warriors. 

S LEMP’S canoe proceeded swiftly in 
the opposite direction as far as river 
travel permitted. The mixed party then 
set forth overland through the forest, and 
came finally to the sea-cliffs. Down the 
narrow paths they filed, guided by their 
scout who had located the Narwhal; 
soon they found themselves above the 
well-camouflaged cove in which, until a 
few days ago, the ship had remained suc- 
cessfully hidden. And dispatching a Long 
Knife warrior in place of Chacma to the 
ship with Munro’s written message, 
Slemp concealed himself with his band 
a short distance along the shore. 

On board the Narwhal young Edwards, 
assistant to Dr. Munro on many previous 
scientific enterprises, saw the arrival of 


KIOGA OF THE WILDERNESS 


117 


“Why do yoti draw 
back?” Kioga 
asked. “Did you 
come all this way 
to Nato’wa to do 
that?” 



a messenger, with mixed pleasure and 
apprehension. Insufficiently versed in the 
marks of clan and tribe to be able to 
pierce the impostor’s identity, he received 
the silent savage with a show of welcome 
and the gift of a trinket. 

After having read Munro’s tragic mes- 
sage, he could think of little else, in his 
preoccupation with ways and means of 
aiding those in the fort. Besides him- 
self, only Edson the mate and Kamotok 
the Eskimo were on board the Narwhal. 
Indeed, it was Kamotok who unwittingly 
had betrayed the ship to the enemy, 
for the barking of one of the dogs, 
brought on deck for exercise, had at- 
tracted attention in the forest. 

Re-reading the note, Edwards laid its 
contents before the others. “We can 
follow orders, or we can go to their aid,” 
he said tersely. “Which will it be ?” 

For answer Kamotok took down from 
the cabin wall his favorite harpoon, and 
tried its edge on his thumb suggestively. 


“You’re my superior, Mr. Edwards,” 
said Edson quietly, “and I’m here to 
take your orders. But not if you order 
me to sail and leave them starving in the 
fort.” 

“If the three of us go,” said Edwards, 
as though himself, “it will mean leaving 
the ship alone.” 

“Ship or no ship,” returned Edson, 
“I’d rather pass out trying to help ’em 
than tell the world we don’t know how 
they died. This fellow,” — indicating the 
watchful savage, — “can take us to the 
fort. And to make sure of him, Kamotok 
can keep his harpoon handy. But I’m 
speaking out of turn, sir. You didn’t 
ask me.” 

“Edson,” said Barry Edwards softly 
but fervently, “you’re a brick.” 

In sign talk Munro’s young scientific 
collaborator then made clear to the In- 
dian their desire to be conducted back to 
the fort. The savage nodded understand- 
ing. Arming themselves and taking along 


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as large a supply of food as they could 
carry, the three men quitted the ship to 
carry aid to the unfortunate occupants 
of Fort Talking Raven — led by Slemp’s 
own warrior! 

They had scarcely vanished inland 
before Slemp and his men drew near the 
ship and stealthily boarded her by way 
of her rope ladders stretched from rocks 
to deck. At high tide they cast off her 
lines and warped her slowly out of the 
cove which had been her station for 
many months. By means of her engine 
they turned north a little distance and 
dropped anchor. Assuring themselves 
that the ship was well provisioned and 
equipped with small-arms, powder and 
shot for the little homemade cannon 
mounted fore and aft, they left her un- 
der guard and set out toward the fort. 
Its inevitable downfall accomplished, its 
gold once seized and brought hither, they 
need worry no longer about an avenue of 
escape out to sea and back to civilization. 

CHAPTER XXXIII 

The Battle of the Buckskin Men 

A SUDDEN attack upon Fort Talking 
Raven by Half-Mouth’s savages, 
persisted in to the bitter end, might this 
day have carried the stronghold. But 
long impatient with a method of warfare 
which had cost him many warriors and 
his white confederates nothing, in the 
absence of his pale-face allies, Shingas 
played a waiting game for a time. 

Hourly the savory smells of meat, 
roasting in the hidden bivouacs of the 
enemy, drifted up to the fort, multiply- 
ing the hunger of its inmates. The last 
of the collected water was exhausted, 
with little prospect of rain to replenish 
it. Their rations had reached the vanish- 
ing-point. Yet no one complained. All 
went about their duties silently. 

Of those who had gone forth to pierce 
the enemy line, none had yet come back. 
Finally Kias, twice scouting out alone, 
returned. “In numbers they are like the 
pine-needles. They watch night and 
day,” was his report before the tense 
little circle of the defenders. “No man 
may pass through.” 

The words fell like sentence of death 
upon the ears of all within those bat- 
tered walls — all save one, small and un- 
noticed, intently listening on the fringe 
of the council circle. 

With quickening heart Tokala repeat- 
ed the words through silent lips. From 


face to face his sharp eyes flew. The 
confident smiles of yesterday were gone. 
On each was graved the lines of care and 
of near-despair. Even Flashpan worried 
fiercely at his straggly mustache ; and at 
his side, as if to set the final seal of 
calamity upon the fort, crouched Placer 
the irrepressible — now the picture of sim- 
ian dejection. 

D AY by day Tokala had listened at 
the councils of his elders. The ru- 
mor that Kioga still lived had set his 
heart on fire. The leaving of Wehoka on 
his search had thrilled him to the core. 
What if his elders now discredited the re- 
port — Tokala had a faith that knew no 
obstacles ! To him the Snow Hawk was 
immortal. 

“No man may pass.” Again the words 
echoed in his ears. And then Tokala’s 
eyes came suddenly alight, like wind- 
fanned coals. In an instant the great 
idea sprang full-born into being. “If not 
a man, mayhap a fox might pass ! ” 

On the very verge of blurting out his 
thoughts, Tokala bit his tongue to stop 
the words. These about him were full- 
grown men; and he, the Fox, was noth- 
ing but a boy — good enough to swab 
the muzzle of a gun, perhaps, but in 
times of danger cooped up in the re- 
doubt with the women. If they divined 
what he contemplated, it would surely 
be forbidden. 

He stole to the wall and climbed rap- 
idly the ladder near the south tower. 
Peering over the inner rail, he took a 
last look. As before, the circle of men 
sat grim-faced about the fire. Tokala 
turned away. 

Near the tower was kept a length of 
rope from the Narwhal. Groping in the 
dark, he found an end, made it fast to 
the nearest cannon and tossed the strand 
over the wall. Quietly he slid down to 
the outer ground, paused to listen for any 
sound to indicate discovery from within 
or without the walls. There was none. 
With every nerve keyed to highest ten- 
sion, he slipped into the nearest thicket. 

Not a hundred feet from the walls he 
came upon the first evidences of the 
enemy — the glow of small camp-fires, 
hooded from view of the fort and closely 
spaced. One by one of these he crept 
past in the gloom, seeking an avenue 
through which he might slip. In circling 
he; came at last to the river Hiwasi. 
Here too the Long Knives were waiting 
in numbers. But cunning and sly deceit 
might yet prevail. Not for nothing was 


KIOGA OF THE WILDERNESS 


119 


Tokala named the Fox! Boldly he 
stepped forward into the fire’s light, 
tomahawk in hand. 

As one man, the squatting warriors 
sprang quickly to their feet, ere relax- 
ing on perceiving that a mere boy stood 
there. One of their number seized him 
roughly by the arm, demanding fiercely : 
“What do you here?” 

“I am from Hopeka,” quoth Tokala 
defiantly, writhing in the warrior’s 
grasp. “I would fight the enemy.” ' A 
general laugh arose as Tokala brandished 
his weapon. 

The brave who held him turned grin- 
ning to the others. “Shall we admit him 
to our band — what think you, warriors?” 

“Ahau!” came an answer. “Let him 
stay. We may grow hungry. Little boys 
are sweet and tender.” 

“How will you be eaten,” asked the 
first warrior sternly of Tokala, “ — roast- 
ed or boiled ?” 

“Raw — if first I take an enemy 
scalp,” answered Tokala swiftly ; where- 
at another laugh rewarded his daring. 

“He is too small to take a life,” said 
a third savage. “What use will he be to 
us — if we do not eat him ?” 

“I will sharpen your knives and clean 
your guns,” said Tokala, gaining con- 
fidence momentarily. “I will watch while 
you sleep.” 

“Ho !” answered the first speaker. 
“Wisdom from the lips of childhood! 
Better in the camp than in the belly.” 
Laughing at this crude sally, the warrior 
gave Tokala a fat deer leg-bone to gnaw 
on. “When you have done with that, act 
as you talk. And see to our knives as 
well. White men’s scalps are tough.” 

Tokala did as he was bidden, assidu- 
ously whetting away at arrow-points and 
knife-blades with a flat stone. Presently 
a warrior lay back and dozed. Others 
followed suit until but two sat up, awake. 

“I weary of this kind of fighting,” 
said one at last. “I too will sleep. Keep 
watch, O Crooked Nose!” And with 
that, he too lay back. 

M INUTES passed, the silence broken 
only by the monotonous scraping 
of Tokala’s stone. For a time Crooked 
Nose watched, gaping and stretching to 
keep awake. Glancing at the other sleep- 
ers, he took from the fire a lighted stick 
six inches long. Removing a moccasin, 
he placed the stick between great and 
second toe. Closing his eyes, he nodded 
the little time it took for the stick to 
burn short and wake him. A glance 


around showed Tokala still at work. No 
one could take them by surprise. Tak- 
ing up a longer stick, the sentry repeated 
the trick and composed himself again. 

T HIS time Tokala’s eyes were on him 
keenly. Softly he crept near and gen- 
tly moved the fire-stick. Crooked Nose 
stirred. Tokala drew back, not again 
to touch the stick. Instead he threw a 
handful of damp earth upon it, quench- 
ing the little flame. 

Watching the man a moment, Tokala 
crept back to his little heap of weapons. 
Glancing round, he saw that none were 
awake. Now from the guns he shook 
the priming powder, replacing it with 
earth; and from each arrow quickly 
stripped the guiding feathers. A last pis- 
tol remained of the few firearms the lit- 
tle band had acquired from the fort 
itself. Looking to flint and steel as 
Flashpan had taught him, Tokala thrust 
it through his belt. The fire flickered 
and dimmed, as the warriors slept. When 
it brightened again, Tokala’s place was 
vacant. 

Along the banks of the Hiwasi, Tokala 
crept north away from the immediate 
area of hostilities. The forest animals, 
which had quitted that noisome vicinity, 
became more abundant. He almost trod 
upon a sleeping water-snake — he heard it 
strike as he jumped away; and he star- 
tled a deer, which fled in turn. Some 
prowling creature which he could not see 
sneezed almost at his elbow; and across 
the river a tiger’s eyes burned redly at 
the drinking level. 

But the Fox kept the stream in hear- 
ing, and clutched his pistol the more 
tightly. Hour on hour he trudged the 
trail, more wearily as time progressed. 
At last, in exhaustion, he paused in a 
gorge through which the river ran. Upon 
an elevated ledge he lay down to steal 
a moment’s rest. He had no chance to 
fight off sleep. It assailed him the mo- 
ment he stretched out. . . . 

But sleep and fate were this night 
brothers. When Tokala awoke, it was 
to glimpse two canoes forging down the 
river. And in the foremost, alive and in 
the flesh, sat — Kiogal 
In his haste to greet the Snow Hawk, 
Tokala almost slipped from the ledge 
with excitement. But eager hands hauled 
him safely into the canoe, and anxious 
ears heard his swift account. 

“Two hours yet to sunrise,” said the 
Snow Hawk when he had done. “The 
Long Knives will be guarding only 


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against the escape of those inside the 
fort. If we be quick, we’ll pierce their 
line in safety.” 

His words proved true. Tokala had 
slept but a little while, and as the two 
canoes raced toward where but recently 
he had sat amid the enemy, the camp was 
just awakening to find that their youth- 
ful guest had disappeared. Indeed', hard- 
ly had Crooked Nose announced the fact, 
when Kioga’s long-boats shot into their 
view. The surprise was complete. The 
speeding craft were broadside on before 
the enemy seized their weapons and lev- 
eled them at the paddling warriors. 

Then uprose furious yells of quick 
dismay. For Tokala had worked cun- 
ningly. Not a gun discharged its bullet. 
Loosing forth their arrows, the Long 
Knives saw them darting every way but 
the right way ; for nothing is more errat- 
ic than an unfeathered shaft — and the 
Fox had stripped them all of vanes. 

Infuriated, one of the Indians raced 
along the bank, thinking to dislodge a 
great stone upon the passing canoes. 

Tokala, holding the heavy pistol in 
both hands, steadied the muzzle on a 
gunwale, leveled, and fired. The ball 
flew wide, but checked the Indian’s en- 
thusiasm none the less. In another in- 
stant the danger-zone was well behind. 

W HEN the savages delivered their 
final attack against Fort Talking 
Raven, it was with the one weapon 
against which the fort would be helpless. 
At a little past midnight the first arrows, 
tipped with flaming pitch, arched crack- 
ling into the fort. Such as could be im- 
mediately reached by the besieged were 
instantly stamped out. But there were 
others which pierced the tower, well dried 
by the previous fire, and swiftly set it 
to blazing. 

With axes Dan and a number of others 
attacked the blaze, chopping away burn- 
ing timbers in the tower. They checked 
the fire finally with buckets of earth, 
taken in this hour of extremity from 
atop the new graves at the east wall. 
But in the overhanging pall of smoke the 
Indian attack came with terrifying sud- 
denness. From the north rampart, via 
the great fallen tree, and up over the 
south wall, Shingas poured his strength 
of men in two fierce waves of stout, well- 
fed warriors, each bearing a torch in one 
hand and a tomahawk in the other. 

The half-starved men within the walls 
met them hand to hand. Already the 
women and children had been herded 


into the redoubt formed by the living 
quarters at the north wall. From every 
corner the falconets spoke loudly, scat- 
tering death among the invaders. On 
the south wall Dan and ten warriors 
coped as best they could with the storm- 
ing party, driving their lances home be- 
fore many of the Indians could grasp the 
parapet in their upward climb. 

But soon the falconets were silent for 
lack of ball. Still the enemy poured into 
the fort. Beside himself with battle 
fury, Flashpan went berserk. Uttering a 
blood-curdling whoop, he vanished in the 
furnace-room and reappeared bent under 
the weight of several deer-skin bags. 

During a momentary lull Munro could 
hear him shouting down upon the enemy, 
as from the sacks he drew forth nuggets 
of gold by the double-handfuls and 
shoved them back into the falconets in 
lieu of other shot. He worked swiftly, 
with a mad glare in his eyes and a wild 
twist to his mustaches. 

“Gold ye wanted, was it?” he shrilled 
out above the enemy warriors’ heads to 
where Mad Crow the renegade could be 
seen urging on his red-skinned warriors. 
“Then gold ye’ll git!” cried Flashpan. 

Aiming his guns, he waited until the 
Indians drew closer. Then with a crash 
he loosed the first barrel, mowing down 
the attackers with richer slugs than ever 
came from cannon’s mouth before. Now 
the second muzzle spewed forth its dead- 
ly treasure. Crash after crash, yell after 
frenzied yell from Flashpan, bespoke the 
swift exhaustion of the little miner’s 
gleaming hoard. When all was gone save 
a small quantity, he threw the empty 
bags upon their heads, then rolled for- 
ward the falconets themselves, and 
hurled his seaman’s cap, his empty pistol 
and whatever else came to hand, down 
full upon the enemy heads. 

A moment later, wrapped in wisps of 
smoke like the very genius of battle, the 
miner, crouching gnomelike, vanished ac- 
tively down the stair and ran toward the 
redoubt, where presently all the defend- 
ers assembled and knelt to fire, backs 
to wall. 

H ERE and there among the gallant 
little company a figure toppled for- 
ward and lay still. Hanson was of these, 
grievously wounded through the chest 
by a Long Knife arrow. Kias, twice 
wounded by bullets from guns which 
Flashpan had fashioned, fought on. 
Munro loaded and fired continually, 
though suffering from an immense swell- 


KIOGA OF THE WILDERNESS 


121 


ing over one eye raised by a flying 
missile. 

One by one the others followed Flash- 
pan, slowly backing, in this final retreat, 
toward the last stronghold — the living- 
quarters, whose slitted loopholed walls 
formed the fort’s redoubt. Sixty Long 
Knives held the fort at last — all save 
that redoubt bristling with the muzzles 
of Munro’s guns. 

Three times the invaders charged those 
staring slits and loopholes, thrice wither- 
ing before the blast that scorched them 
from within. But when for the last time 
the Long Knives came forward, the guns 
were all but still. Ammunition almost 
exhausted, their poor strength strained 
to the final limits of human endurance, 
the emaciated defenders but waited for 
the end, determined to save their last 
bullets for each other. 

P ALE but calm, Beth and Heladi sat side 
by side, speechless amid the uproar. 
Equally calm, but grim with the expecta- 
tion of death, Munro and Dan knelt at 
their posts, grimy with sweat and pow- 
der-smoke. The occasional twang of a 
bow sounded within the redoubt, but the 
arrows were almost all gone. Within 
the redoubt children clutched at their 
mothers’ skirts ; an occasional bullet found 
its way in at the loopholes and struck 
viciously into the stone wall at their 
backs. 

Suffocating smoke from the smudges 
lighted by the enemy, began to penetrate 
the redoubt, adding tenfold to the miser- 
ies of the occupants. Amid the eddying 
whorls, a savage painted visage appeared 
suddenly at one loophole, and reaching 
in, pointed a pistol at Dan’s head. 

Snatching up a musket from the 
ground beside her, Beth thrust its muz- 
zle against the paint-streaked temple and 
pulled the trigger. She saw the painted 
face disappear, and herself leaned against 
the wall, suddenly sick and faint. Re- 
covering, she returned to continue load- 
ing the muskets while Munro and the 
men still on their feet subjected the en- 
emy to a final murderous cross-fire. 

It was, however, but a futile, gallant 
gesture by that indomitable little band, 
with their backs to the wall. As the at- 
tack continued unabated, despair invaded 
the redoubt. Alone, the white men and 
their Indian friends could have fought 
to the bitter end without flinching. But 
realization of the fate awaiting their 
women and children embittered these 
final moments. Complete dejection had 



at last overwhelmed the wonderful re- 
sistance which had withstood all assaults 
but those of hunger and thirst. 

Grim and white-faced, the besieged 
charged their weapons for the last time. 
While some guarded the loopholes, with 
heavy hearts their companions turned 
toward those who could not be permitted 
to fall into the cruel hands of the In- 
dians for torture. 

Knowing that death by pistol-shot was 
a mercy compared to capture by the 
Long Knives, the aged and the women 
and their few children quietly bade one 
another farewell and stood forward. 
With a last murmur to Beth, Heladi 
came over to Dan. Without a word she 
went into his arms, gave him her lips, 
then drawing swiftly back, stood erect 
and ready. 

As he grasped his pistol, beads of 
sweat mingled and rolled down Dan’s 
blackened brow, streaking it white. The 
weapon in his hand shook and fell as if 
his arm were paralyzed. 

“Quick, Dan!” Heladi urged. 

“God forgive me — I can’t do it ! ” cried 
Dan, his voice choking. 

Beth stood suddenly forth, cool as ice. 

“Let me,” she said quietly. Yielding 
up the pistol, Dan turned aside. There 
was a moment’s pause. He wondered 



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Betb lja Salle 


dully if Beth could bring herself to per- 
form the heroic mercy for Heladi, at 
which he had weakened. But he reck- 
oned without her pioneer ancestry. He 
heard a click and the puff of priming 
powder close behind him — and simul- 
taneously a cry from some near place 
without the walls ; as deep and sinister a 
yell as ever broke from human throat. 

Dan’s blood ran cold. For all his man- 
hood, Munro himself felt a little shiver 
run up and down his spine. Kias leaped 
as if snake-bitten, and twenty warriors 
with him. 

Wheeling, Dan turned toward Heladi, 
expecting to find her crumpled. He saw 
instead a strange glad light in her eyes; 
while Beth stood staring at the pistol 
which had missed fire. 

Again came that singular yell, closer 
now, every syllable clear and distinct. 
Amid all the uproar Munro could make 
nothing of the excitement among his In- 
dians. But the meaning of the cry had 
affected the Long Knives as well. 
Checked in full rush, a babel of tongues 
arose, questioning, answering, denying — 
but what, no white man could have told. 

Then, of a sudden, clear and shrill 
above the din of battle, came a lesser 
piercing cry. A small active figure ap- 
peared above the wall, where the fallen 
tree had overtopped its height. Two 
rifles instantly swung upon it. But 
Flashpan shouted : 

“The cowards have sent a boy to do 
their dirty work— don’t fire ! ” Then 
menacingly to the figure on the wall, ob- 
scured by smoke and semi-darkness ; 
“Who be ye? Quick! — afore I drop 
ye!” 

“Tokala ! ” came the treble answer, and 
then in shrill notes of boyish triumph: 
“Kioga the Snow Hawk comes, with We- 
hoka and twenty warriors ! ” 


“Hooray ! ” howled Flashpan, then sud- 
denly realizing Tokala’s peril: “Git off 
the wall ! Jump — I’ll catch ye ! ” 

Obeying, Tokala fell through space, 
his impact carrying both to the ground, 
but without injury. Together they were 
pulled by eager hands into the redoubt. 

Quick commands brought order out 
of chaos. .Munro led his little band from 
the fortified redoubt, through the chain 
of rooms, to where they commanded a 
view of the northern wall. 

As they watched, a face appeared 
above the log head-cover. At sight of it 
Heladi caught a sudden breath. Beth’s 
heart stopped as if she looked upon a 
ghost. Munro and La Salle stood rooted 
and speechless, doubting the evidence of 
their own eyes. 

But on glimpsing that familiar and 
unmistakable face, Kias the Shoni gave 
the single welcoming call: “Kioga! 
K’gonami ! — Kioga !” 

The words were like some magic for- 
mula poured into the arteries of the In- 
dians of the fort. Back to the wall they 
had stood — defeated, all but defenseless. 
But Kias’ answer to the battle-yell, 
which had so often led them on to vic- 
tory, ran like an electric shock through 
all their frames. 

They flung wide the heavy doors and 
hurled themselves upon the startled Long 
Knives. From above, one by one and 
two by two, Kioga’s warriors were com- 
ing into the fort. From twenty feet 
above the wall, amid the branches of the 
fallen tree-crown, Kioga was seen to 
drop, alighting upon a ledge like a bundle 
of loose-coiled springs, to bound along 
it toward the south wall where the fight- 
ing now raged hottest. 

I N among the combatants he darted, 
dealing those lightning blows whose 
every fall laid low a warrior. Two sav- 
ages sprang upon him, and were them- 
selves hurled senseless to the base of the 
parapet. Aim and fire before, it was cut 
and thrust now. Roused by the advent 
of assistance Dan and his men fought 
with new fury, plying their clubbed pis- 
tols and reversed rifles with terrible ef- 
fect, driving the Long Knives back into 
the fires they themselves had kindled. 

In less time than it takes to tell of it 
the wall was cleared. 

Just below the wall the gates sagged 
to the assaults from outside where a 
group of Half Mouth’s Indians, unaware 
of what was transpiring within, sought 
to batter down the barrier. Presently 


KIOGA OF THE WILDERNESS 


123 


the doors gave way before the ram. 
Snatching up a military flail, Kioga 
dropped to the gates below, carrying 
down a Long Knife in his spring. 

With tremendous swings of the deadly 
loose-coupled weapon he drove back the 
invaders almost single-handed, while sev- 
eral warriors tried to shut the ponderous 
barrier. But one of the huge iron hinges 
had parted and their efforts proved of 
no avail. Waving them aside, Kioga set 
back and shoulder against the gate, 
locked loins and thighs, and turned on 
the mighty generators of his strength. 

The massive gate lifted, creaking. Ex- 
erting every ounce of his power, the 
Snow Hawk crashed it home, and Munro 
jammed a log against it. The fort was 
closed against the enemy outside. 

Within, the battle raged with doubled 
fury, the Long Knives determined to sell 
their lives dearly, the defenders striving 
that not one man should leave alive. 

_ Like wolves and leopards in a common 
pit, the entire court was filled with fight- 
ing warriors, red and white. No quarter 
asked, no quarter given; knife to club, 
tomahawk to spear. 

H ERE stands a Long Knife, striving 
to wrest a club from his foe. Then 
— stone meets skull, and the victor seeks 
another foe. There struggle two warriors, 
locked like twining, twisting serpents, 
each with a broken knife, carving his op- 
ponent’s back to ribbons. Upon the wall 
two combatants at throat-grips wrestle. 
One falls to knees and drags his foeman 
down; both topple to the court and lie 
inert and motionless, still locked. . . . 

A little rain begins to fall. No one 
notices in the heat of battle, smoke and 
blazing logs. From above a voice calls 
out. As one man the defenders leap from 
the court and man the walls. Forty 
bows strain at full tension ; forty gut- 
strings twang with a single seolian chord. 
The barbs slash down and pierce and 
kill. It is the end. The fort is held. In 
the court nothing moves, nothing twitch- 
es. All is death below the swirls of 
heavy smoke. 

A door opens in the arms-room. A 
girl comes forth — Heladi, savage woman, 
inured to sights of blood and sudden 
death. One look, and she turns back, 
to faint into Beth La Salle’s open arms. 

On the walls men speak in bated tones. 
Rain falls with a mounting roar. Thirsty 
men drink from little pools and slosh 
water on their heated brows. All look 
away from that central court. 



Suddenly a small figure, wandering in 
search of a long-tailed monkey, darts out 
among the dead. Shrinking from one to 
another, like one entranced by goblin 
horrors, he stands quite still at last amid 
the dead. 

Thus Kioga found Tokala as he re- 
turned from a last glance over the sound 
wall to see the enemy in full retreat. 
Placer the monkey had sprung from no- 
where to Tokala’s shoulder, gibbering 
there like the very soul of fear. Snatch- 
ing both into his arms, the Snow Hawk 
bore them from the reeking court into 
the arms-room. 

He spoke no word as yet to Beth, but 
hurried out again and mounting the 
north wall, paused to watch a savage bit 
of drama being enacted on the tree which 
spanned the river. 

The battle was not quite over. Seek- 
ing only escape, out upon the great bole 
Shingas stumbled. With a deep whoop 
of triumph, Kias the Shoni closed upon 
the shaman from behind. Then above 
the river the full ferocity of primitive 
men was given grim play. 

They were at each other’s throats, 
Shingas armed with a knife, Kias buck- 
lered only by his vow to avenge his 
fellow-clansman, victim of Half Mouth’s 
gift of poisoned meat. The shaman, 
turning, brought his knife upward in a 
curving stroke aimed at Kias’ vitals, but 
Kias’ fingers linked about his wrist, turn- 
ing the blow and twisting until Half 
Mouth dropped the knife flashing into 
the river below. For an instant the sha- 
man fought with teeth and nails, seeking 
to maim or gouge. 

With deadly purpose Kias waited his 
chance, and struck suddenly with his 
clenched hand, knocking breath from the 
witch-doctor’s body, and flinging him 
prone across a limb. Reaching swiftly 
for the shaman’s braids, he worked them 


124 


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into a knot, reinforced with a strip of 
rawhide. With the remainder of the 
rawhide thong he tied Half Mouth’s 
hands behind his back. 

In an instant the grim work was done, 
and Shingas hung swinging from a limb 
by his hair, only space and the river far 
below him. From the fort the occupants 
could see his eyes roll upward as a dark 
shadow winged slowly by, and a great 
raven paused ; then alighted on a branch 
that sagged under its weight. . . . Then 
came others. Slowly the ring of black 
drew near. In a moment more the hang- 
ing figure was blotted from view by 
black wings and feathers. 

The Indians in the fort watched stead- 
ily; the whites turned aside, revolted. 
But they were spared any outcry from 
Shingas. Fear did swiftly what the 
carrion-birds would have prolonged. . . . 
Shingas had died of utter terror. Dark- 
ness shut out the sight. The night 
passed ; in the morning only a few strings 
of hair still blew in the breeze. Ravens, 
the Indians say, do not devour hair. 

I NSIDE the arms-room Beth La Salle, 
with swiftly beating heart, saw the door 
swing wide to admit one for whom she 
had crossed a continent and two seas. 
Panic seized her when she glimpsed Ki- 
oga’s strange arresting eyes, the strong 
lines of his features softened as never 
before. Rigid and trembling, she felt 
strong arms encompass her swiftly. 

But presently her civilized woman’s 
restraint returned. Sensing this, Kioga 
held her less fiercely. 

“Why do you draw back?” he asked 
her softly. “Did you come all this way 
to Nato’wa to do that?” 

Some of her deserting wits returned. 
“How can you be so sure of that?” 
she asked. 

For answer he removed a little scroll 
of birch-bark from his belt-pouch and 
held it where she might read the despair- 
ing note she had left in the mountain 
cave, in the belief that he was dead. 
This time she did not draw back. . . . 

Deep dark eyes upon Kioga, Heladi 
stood with Dan watching the reunion of 
the white girl and the Snow Hawk, with 
an emotion not even the uneasy La Salle 
could fathom. He knew Heladi had giv- 
en him her love, believing Kioga dead. 
Would the Snow Hawk’s revival raise 
that old barrier between them? 

As Kioga and Beth came into the 
court, Dan La Salle withdrew to one 
side. Beth drew back a little also, that 


Kioga and Heladi might meet alone. 
And she too knew a twinge of fear, for 
Heladi seemed more beautiful now than 
ever. 

But Kioga and Heladi remained apart, 
still looking upon each other in silence, 
the man with simple pleasure, the girl 
with thoughts that will ever be a mys- 
tery. When they spoke it was in softest 
Wacipi — Heladi’s dialect — that no one in 
the fort could hear. But presently the 
Indian girl’s eyes lowered. Quietly she 
moved away and came to stand beside 
Dan. Removing an ornament from about 
her neck, Heladi placed it round Dan La 
Salle’s. Thus, by the custom of her 
tribe, she made known her pledge to him. 

R EPULSED, the Long Knives licked 
. their wounds in the forests surround- 
ing Fort Talking Raven. Though discour- 
aged and decimated by their final defeat, 
in the return of the Snow Hawk they 
had perhaps the one spur that could 
have induced them again to attempt the 
storming of the walls. For of all men 
Kioga, former warrior chieftain of the 
Seven Shoni Tribes, was one who could 
swiftest wreck their plans and organize 
opposition to the Long Knife rebellion. 

Already the Indians had retaken pos- 
session of their work opposite the north 
wall, which Kioga and his warriors had 
found abandoned on their arrival at the 
bridge. Commanding this with a falco- 
net, ready to blast down whosoever set 
foot upon it, the Long Knives also 
thronged the forest on the island itself ; 
while up and down the riverways word 
had passed that the Snow Hawk was still 
alive, bringing consternation or wild re- 
joicing wherever the news became known. 

In Fort Talking Raven, affairs had 
improved. One of Kioga’s warriors had 
brought in a load of dried meat from the 
canoe supply. Rain had replenished 
their water store. Others of the new- 
comers shared their personal belt sup- 
plies of acorn meal with the hungry 
occupants of the fort. And as if sent 
from heaven itself, the night brought a 
flock of migrating geese to the walls. 
Twenty were shot down, cooked and 
eaten. And that night, by the firelight, 
amid stillness broken only by a far 
wolf’s howl, Kioga told his listeners all 
that had befallen him since the time he 
had left civilization to return to Nato’wa. 

Later, in council, it was determined 
to quit the fort. From the warriors he 
had encountered on the river Kioga had 
learned that a friendly welcome would 


KIOGA OF THE WILDERNESS 


125 


await the Indians at the upper river vil- 
lages. Without an adequate water-sup- 
ply and with food scarce and hard to 
bring into the fort, it seemed wiser for 
the whites to strike seaward to the well- 
provisioned Narwhal, before it had time 
to act upon Munro’s earlier instructions 
to sail away. 

Under cover of dark and fog, in the 
silence of the night, the plan was execut- 
ed. Using ropes and a block from the 
ship, one after another of the occupants 
were lowered to the river-bank. Kioga’s 
warriors brought up their sturdy dugouts. 
And an hour before dawn the enemy be- 
sieged an empty fort. 


CHAPTER XXXIV 

The Running of the Gantlet 

H AVING made their farewells within 
the fort, in utter silence Kioga em- 
barked his own party in the waiting dug- 
outs and gave the signal to push off. The 
Indians paddled off northward toward 
the distant friendly villages. The whites, 
accompanied by Kioga and his red- 
skinned friends, turned southward. 

The paddles dipped as one ; the shore 
faded behind ; the mists enwrapped them. 

In silent procession, roped together to 
forestall separation, the three craft 
moved slowly downstream with their 
human freight. Thus they passed the 
junctions of streams, and Hopeka village 
itself, well covered by the friendly vapors. 
Then suddenly, intensified by the mists, 
a questioning call rang out, close by. 

Instantly the paddlers ceased laboring. 
Watching from amidships in the cen- 
tral canoe, Beth observed all the war- 
riors’ eyes fixed upon a single point. 
Seated at the bow, eyes riveted upon the 
water close below, crouched the Snow 
Hawk. On his signaling hand the eyes 
of all were fastened. What he saw to be 
guided by on that ever-changing surface 
only Kioga knew. Among the myriad 
ripples only his eye could have detected 
the little whirls of recent paddles, at 
sight of which he signaled for a sharp 
left turn. The turn was made. A mo- 
ment later the voices of Indians, close 
behind them on their quarter, could be 
distinctly heard. 

Their present movements were a blind 
groping in a world of nacreous half- 
tones. The mists hung down like muslin 
veils, visibly rising a few feet, then low- 
ering inexplicably. Sometimes they had 
a glimpse of open space for fifty feet. 


through wisps of smoky cloud hanging 
in tenuous passages, then merging into 
obscurity again. 

Skirting close to shore, they heard a 
snow-leopard grate harshly. Dog and 
monkey showed teeth and fangs ; but as 
if comprehending the need for silence, 
they made no sound. An instant later 
they glided upon a cowering fawn, so 
silently that it started only after they 
had passed. The analogy was clear: 
Both the deer and they were now among 
the hunted. . . . 

Not until this moment had Beth real- 
ized how completely the outcome of their 
daring break from the fort hung upon 
Kioga’s instantaneous decisions. Yet 
with the enemy long-boats fairly sur- 
rounding them, she experienced not the 
slightest fear, but only a fierce exhilara- 
tion. A wave of pride and gladness 
surged over her as he turned, saying : 
“We’re almost through them now.” 

He spoke too soon. Others had played 
the silent waiting game. Across their 
quarter, distant some ten yards, two 
long-boats rushed upon them under full 
way. It was close and fight this time, 
accomplished by the war-dugouts with 
astonishing quickness. The canoe bear- 
ing the white party dropped back, facing 
the foe to present a narrow mark. 

The remaining two darted forward. 
The four combatant craft came together 
with a rush. Sheer weight told. The 
dugouts, hard-driven, crashed into the 
lighter birch-barks, glanced off and 
drove onward. And as they passed, 
with their hook-like river spears Kioga’s 
men slashed the bottoms of the enemy, 
which filled rapidly. 

Another moment found them well past 
the point of danger. Behind them the 
canoe-pack was in full cry now. But the 
mists still hid one foe from the other. 
The gantlet was run. 

Bristling with random shafts and riv- 
er-men’s slim spears, the dugouts made 
swift headway toward their destination. 
The fleeing band camped that night on 
shore, having left their canoes behind on 
their journey to the coast. 

B Y the light of the cooking-fires Mun- 
ro made his last entries in his diary, 
confiding it and his store of sketches and 
drawings to a runner, who went ahead of 
the main party with a note informing the 
Narwhal of their coming. 

( 1 pause perforce at this point in my 
narrative, faced by a difficult dilemma. 
Until now 1 have drown upon the record 


126 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


kept by James Munro — a record whose 
later passages are writ in ink made from 
gunpowder mixed with water. But Munro 
made his final entries before dispatching 
the diary to the Narwhal. The diary, 
consequently, tells nothing of what trans- 


Reduced to plain essentials from the 
poorly written, illiterate and badly se- 
quenced notes of an ignorant seaman, I 
adduce the following facts, found under 
the icy hand of one who was dead 
aboard the Narwhal for many months 





pired thereafter. Happily, I possess two 
other sources enabling me to continue — 
the written confession of one of the rene- 
gades ; and an astonishing motion-picture 
film which, taken by the aid of the new 
infra-red photography, is truly extra- 
ordinary. 

It will be remembered that the Nar- 
whal actually returned to the ken of 
civilized men. Her sails were torn as by 
grape-shot; the arrows and spears of a 
strange race protruded from her sides. 
She bore a peculiar equipment of primi- 
tive guns, and a priceless treasure of ab- 
original relics and artifacts. And there 
were none but dead men aboard her. 

Yet through the medium of pencil and 
paper, in obedience to the scourging of 
conscience and the fear of death, one of 
those dead has spoken. What immediate- 
ly follows is taken from his written con- 
fession. — Author.) 




before the winds and currents cast her 
out of unknown seas with her strange 
and absorbing riddle: 

Under sail and engine power the Nar- 
whal made good her escape to the open 
sea, following the chart Munro had 
drawn on his course inland. Branner, 
shot dead at the wheel, was carried below 
and laid in the main cabin. Mad Crow 
also died of gunshot wounds, sustained 
in the cabin when a shot came through 





KIOGA OF THE WILDERNESS 


127 


the open porthole. Only Peters, the writ- 
er of the confession — one of those suc- 
cored from the ice by the Narwhal — and 
the wounded Mitchell, Slemp’s right-hand 
man, remained alive to pilot the ship. 

After their ordeal of passage through 
the reefs, neither had the strength to car- 
ry the dead on deck for burial overside. 
Fortunately, it turned freezing cold. The 
dead were speedily refrigerated. 

The engine soon failed. The Narwhal 
proceeded under a few square yards of 


sail — the gut sail of Kamotok’s manu- 
facture. Mitchell, suffering from his 
wound, grew steadily worse and threat- 
ened to do Peters violence. One day, as 
the sick man stood on deck, he suddenly 
drew a pistol. Peters fired first, and at 
a roll of the ship Mitchell pitched over 
into the sea to sink and vanish. 

With food in plenty, Peters could not 
eat. His teeth had been shot away in 
one of the raids on the fort. Hoar-frost 
sealed up the door leading to where wa- 



128 


THE BLUE BOOK MAGAZINE 


ter was kept. Peters’ diminished strength 
was unequal to battering the door down. 

Perceiving his end near at hand, be- 
latedly he sought to make peace with his 
Creator by writing a full confession, end- 
ing with the following entry : 

December 26, 19 — . 
To-day . . . (indecipherable) . . . last 
day. All dead . . but me. Last day. God 
forgive . . . ( remainder indecipherable.) 

So ends that illiterate note found un- 
der the cold hand of the last man to give 
up his ghost on the death-ship Narwhal. 
With food and drink on board, and 
every possibility of surviving for several 
years, the icy finger of the frigid North 
found a way into the vessel and robbed 
all on board of life; then as if in grim 
jest preserved one man in the semblance 
of life and cast the ship before the eyes 
of living men. 

Thus from the hand of an actor in the 
drama, comes knowledge of what befell 
the Narwhal after she sailed from Nato’- 
wa on her last voyage which was destined 
to end in fire, explosion and shipwreck in 
northern waters. Thus ends the saga of 
the Narwhal — a science-ship, discovery- 
ship, warship, and at last, funeral-ship. 

B UT of the Kioga the Snow Hawk, of 
James Munro, Beth, Dan and all the 
others of that gallant little company 
which held a wilderness at bay, there re- 
mains a little more to be told. 

Delivered to me this day was a small 
round tin containing a long strip of new- 
ly developed motion-picture film — the 
contents of the little camera found 
among other treasures on board the 
returned Narwhal. The expert who de- 
veloped it apologized for the imperfec- 
tion of the work — as if he could be held 
to blame for the conditions under which 
it was exposed four thousand miles away 
in a savage wilderness, known only to a 
little handful of civilized men. 

How that camera came to be actuated 
— who trained it upon the scenes it so 
faithfully recorded upon sensitized film, 
—and why — may never be known. Per- 
haps in a spirit of derision, by one of the 
renegades making away with the ship. 
Perhaps — but no matter. 

I took the little tin into a dark-room 
in the private museum which bears 
James Munro’s name. I ran it into a 
projection-machine, flipped a switch and 
awaited the result with tense excitement. 

The square of linen became suddenly 
illumined. Into its blank whiteness 


drama stalked with a suddenness that 
took my breath away. I was no longer 
in a small museum in the heart of the 
largest city in the world. I was thou- 
sands of miles away on a ship near the 
shore of the last, most savage wilderness 
left unexplored on this earth — Nato’wa. 

T HE whir of the projection-machine 
might have been the wind vibrating 
through the crags on the sea-cliffs. What 
I saw the camera had seen, and those 
renegades on the ship as well. I even 
imagined the sounds were reproduced, so 
startlingly realistic was my illusion of 
being at the scene. . . . 

I heard the creak of blocks and the 
roar of waters inshore. Across my vision 
slipped a vertical face of wet rock, 
against which a great swell broke, toss- 
ing up whitest foam. The wall ended. 
Into view came a party of whites and 
Indians who for a moment stood gazing 
in amazement. Among them could be 
recognized not only Dr. Munro and Dan, 
Beth and Heladi, and Kioga, but also 
Barry Edwards, the mate Edson and Ka- 
motok. Apparently the latter group had 
discovered their guide was an enemy, had 
made way with him, and had somehow 
found and joined forces with the others. 

Bows were bent. Arrows whisked 
across the waters toward the ship, strik- 
ing sharply and vibrating where they 
pierced wood or sail. Several spears 
hurtled through the air and struck here 
and there on the ship. 

Suddenly the Narwhal quivered, as 
from the bow the saker spoke crisply. 
Behind the party on the shore a ball 
struck sparks from a great rock. But 
there was no further firing of that for- 
ward gun. A copper knife, hard-thrown, 
struck the ship’s side before she sheered 
away from shore — taking the outgoing 
channel leading to the open sea. 

Now several savages, trundling a 
demi-cannon, appeared along the shore. 
Another followed with a leather bag, and 
behind him came a mustached figure — 
unmistakably Flashpan. The gun was 
turned and aimed. Flashpan rammed 
home a powder charge taken from the 
leather bag, rolled in a heavy ball, and 
leaped to the breech. 

Chips flew from a great boulder behind 
Flashpan’s head as a bullet from the 
ship struck it. In no wise troubled by 
his peril, Flashpan inspected flint and 
lock, made ready to fire, drew back, and 
jerked the cord. The crude cannon 
leaped. A gigantic mushroom of smoke 


KIOGA OF THE WILDERNESS 


129 


burst from its muzzle. Its ball, intended 
to hull the Narwhal amidships, flew high, 
lodging in the mainmast with an impact 
that rocked the craft from truck to keel- 
son. But the shore continued to recede, 
while Flashpan labored at his gun. 
Another burst flashed out from the demi- 
cannon. A shower of granite stones 
slashed through sails and rigging like 
grape-shot. By now the Narwhal had 
almost run past the danger zone. But 
there were still keen eyes to reckon with. 

From a pointed crag a pair of eyes 
squinted down a smoothbore barrel and 
put a bullet into the after cabin an inch 
from where Branner stood crouching at 
the wheel. Instantly the slim shadow 
that was Tokala passed the marksman 
another loaded gun. Again the crack of 
the weapon. This time the helmsman 
went down, limp as a thong of leather. 

Slemp, dragging himself toward the 
shelter of a cabin, rose to his knees. 
Again another of Flashpan’s smooth- 
bores flamed, but the bullet went two 
inches wild. All the loaded pieces had 
now been fired. Flashpan danced about, 
beside himself with impotent fury. 

Behind him knelt Dan La Salle, re- 
loading hastily. Slightly to his right 
stood Beth, gazing out upon the vanish- 
ing Narwhal with an indescribable ex- 
pression. Beside her, Heladi watched 
Dan load the guns. Close behind them 
Munro saw his Narwhal making an es- 
cape, with what emotions I can only guess. 

A LL of this, you will realize, was as I 
i. glimpsed it, thrown upon a screen 
at the Munro Museum, in the heart of 
New York City. Yet so swift and realis- 
tic was the action that I seemed to hear 
the echo of the guns resounding among 
the cliffs where a myriad pinions beat 
the air — ivory-gulls frightened aloft by 
the heavy detonations. 

Then suddenly, as if from nowhere, a 
tall, wonderfully proportioned figure 
stood forth in the garb of a Shoni In- 
dian. With a few words to Flashpan he 
fitted an arrow to his bow, drew back the 
string and aimed as if to shoot about the 
ship. But his intention was plain when 
the arrow leaped from the cord, spinning 
rapidly as it came. 

I saw the shaft in flight, followed its 
beautiful parabola in full soaring arc. 

Slemp, struggling to drag himself with- 
in the cabin had been for that instant 
within the focus of the lens. He, too, 
must have seen the arrow coming, by the 

The 


expression of fear on his features. But 
if he saw it, he was powerless to evade it. 
Its impetus drove it deep, piercing him 
and emerging from his other side. 

Ashore there must have been a hush 
following that wonderful shot. Kioga 
had not changed stance from the mo- 
ment of loosing, but poised watched his 
arrow’s arc, the personification of the 
hunter-warrior depicted on some ancient 
frieze. And then — 

Then came a growing obscurity. A 
fog-bank was closing down upon the 
Narwhal, aiding in her escape; and fi- 
nally blankness — utter blankness. 

I WAS back magically from an un- 
known land, standing in a house in the 
heart of a great city, yet trembling in 
every fiber at what I had seen. The film 
was ended, and with it — for the present 
— my story of that land of mists and 
mystery, Nato’wa. 

Munro’s gallant band failed to hold 
that little outpost of civilization, Fort 
Talking Raven. But it was a glorious 
failure, in the best tradition of their race. 

James Munro, scientist, who left be- 
hind the world and its prizes to probe the 
rumor of an unknown land and race ; his 
loyal little indomitable band, tempered 
in fire and steeled by common adversity 
— these few souls are a symbol, as were 
the Pilgrims, of destiny. Their home is 
the last unconquered land in this modern 
world. Their neighbors are the savage 
vagabond hordes of the warlike Shoni. 
The roars of wild beasts disturb their 
slumbers. Their waking hours are filled 
with alarms. 

But they have pioneered the way, hewn 
out the early routes to this unknown land. 
Their quiet tread foretells the tramp of 
many feet. In this Twentieth-Century 
world of crowded boundaries, the march 
of empire is unending. Other men will 
strive to reach Nato’wa — men who lust 
for adventure, free air to breathe, gold; 
good men who follow the lure of distant 
drums, and men of fiercer temper who 
ever seek new frontiers whereon to fatten 
by their lawlessness. 

But will aid to Kioga and his little 
handful of friends come in time? Has 
all the heroism of these modern pioneers 
been in vain ? Shall there be no men of 
iron will and brazen courage to succor 
them before it is too late? 

I do not know, nor they, nor any mor- 
tal man. The answer is written in the 
tight-wrapped scroll of things to come. 
End 


<^hCy Life at (§ea 

A distinguished writer s fascinating 
narrative of his career as a sailor * 

By Bill Adams 


1 SUPPOSE I ought to start my bi- 
ography at the very beginning. All I 
know about it is that the doctor who 
was present when I arrived said that he 
did not think it would be possible to rear 
me. I was very diminutive. . . . 

My mother was always in bed upstairs. 
I remember her only once. ... It was 
in our little house at Berkswell. She 
was sitting in bed, propped up on her pil- 
lows, her jet black hair hanging in a 
cloud about her shoulders. Her blue eyes, 
large and very big, were looking right at 
me. And she was smiling. It made me 
feel very happy. Except for one other 
time, I do not remember her at all. She 
had been engaged to a Congregational 
minister when she ran away and married 
my father when he was sixty-four. 

Maybe I could begin my biography 
with the other time I remember my 
mother , because it is the plainest of all 
the memories of my childhood. It was a 
gray day, with now and then a sprinkle 
of rain. I don’t know where my broth- 
er Geoffrey was. Maybe he was away 
at Albert Villas, which was a private 
school for the sons of gentlemen, at Clif- 
ton. Our two aunties owned it. They 
were not really our aunties. They were 
our step-sisters, and Frank’s sisters ; the 
daughters of my father by his first mar- 
riage. Their names were Auntie Kitty 
and Auntie Polly. 

I was alone, digging for worms in the 
wet cold earth of the back yard. I set the 
can down and went into the house, went 
upstairs and into a bedroom. In it were 
two chairs, and on them was a long 
wooden box. I had to tiptoe to see into 
the box. I looked into it for just a very 
few moments. And then as I went from 
the room, I met two servants in. the hall. 
One looked at the other and said, “He’s 
sden his mother.” I don’t know where it 
happened. And though, since I grew up, 
I have several times tried to find her 

*For details of our plan in connection with 
these stories of real experience, see page 3. 


grave, I have no idea where it is. She was 
thirty-five when she died. 

It was while we lived at Berkswell that 
I first saw Dolly. She was the fourth of 
Frank’s five daughters. He came to 
Berkswell one day with her and Edie, 
the fifth daughter. Geoffrey and I had 
each a glass jar in a sunny window, and 
in the jars were flies and other winged 
insects we had caught. Dolly took the 
lids off and set all our insects free. I was 
very angry and hated her and told her 
that I did. But I know that even then, 
deep down inside me, was a sort of re- 
spect for her. I was a barbaric, cruel 
little boy, and she made me conscious of 
it and that she was gentle and merciful. 
She was eight years older than I. 

M Y father had long silky white hair 
that hung down over his shoulders. 
He wore a pointed white beard, in which 
was a tinge of ruddiness here and there.. 
His big mustache was also ruddy-tinged. 
His eyes were deep blue, bright as those 
of an eagle. The veins on his wrists stood 
out, high and cordy. One day while I sat 
on his knee, I lifted his beard. Under it 
was a wide livid scar running from close 
to his ear down across his throat. An 
Arab spear had made it long ago. 

As a lad he had quarreled with his 
father, run away from home, and enlisted 
in the French Foreign Legion. When the 
Legion lost its colors in battle, he had 
recaptured them. Then he was color 
sergeant of the Legion. But after a while 
he grew tired of being a Legionaire and 
deserted. Captured, he was sentenced to 
be shot. On the night before the execu- 
tion was to be, he escaped and swam 
almost a mile out to sea, where an Eng- 
lish ship lay at anchor. 

So he returned to England. There he 
obtained a position as French tutor in a 
private school for young ladies, owned by 
a lady whose two daughters helped with 
the teaching. One morning a few weeks 
after he obtained the position, one of the 
130 



Etching by Yngve Edward Soderberg 

Ships and salt water! "Tell the sea that I am coming soon." 

131 



132 


REAL EXPERIENCES 


daughters did not appear. Nor did he. 
They had eloped to America. The daugh- 
ter with whom he ran away had been 
engaged to a man named Ben Sarsons 
and was to have been married in a few 
days. She was the mother of Frank and 
my two step-sisters. My father took out 
his naturalization papers at Elmira, New 
York State, on April the ninth, 1845. He 
did many things in America before he 
went back to England. He was a back- 
woods school-teacher, and for a time he 
practised law. When he returned to 
England, the Crimean War was starting. 
His elder brother was a general and com- 
manded the Guard’s Brigade at the battle 
of Inkerman dying of wounds after the 
battle. Father rode with the Heavy 
Brigade and was with it on Balaclava 
Day, when it charged through thirty 
thousand Russians, wheeled, galloped 
back, and repeated the charge twice more. 
I used to have his sword, but lost it long 
ago in my wanderings. After the Crimean 
War, he returned to America, where he 
later rode with General Sherman from 
Atlanta to the sea. . . . 

After my mother’s death, Auntie Polly 
took charge of my brother Geoffrey and 
me. My father had no money and was 
cared for by Frank. I hated Frank, be- 
cause he always teased me. I hated him 
more after Auntie Polly took me to Albert 
Villas, because she made me wear my 
hair in long curls; and that made him 
tease me still worse whenever he came 
on a visit. But I loved his wife Auntie 
Clarissa. I don’t know white my father 
was during my first years at Albert 
Villas. Auntie Polly kissed me a great 
deal and taught me to say prayers at bed- 
time. 

After Father came back, we went to 
live at Low Cop farm. There were no 
children there, but there was a brook in 
which grew yellow flags, and golden king- 
cups. There was golden gorse too, on the 
hill slope below Low Cop. And there 
was my father. 

One evening at sunset Father took me 
down to the river Wye that flowed maybe 
a mile away. The sky was all shining 
gold. The air was motionless, and no 
bird sang. No sound came from the farm 
animals. The golden light glowed on 
the yellow gorse on the hill slope. All 
the world was silent and golden. It is the 
first sunset I remember. As we walked to 
the river, the lights faded. The air grew 
cooler. On the river bank Father stripped 
naked. He walked in, and swam to the 
far bank and back, his long white hair 


floating out on the water behind him. 
And then he made me strip, and led me 
into the cold clear water. I learned to 
swim that evening. The Roman cavalry 
had splashed across that river, hunting 
the fleeing Britons. Norman knights had 
forded it, harrying the Saxons. King 
Arthur and his knights had ridden there. 
Father talked of them while we rubbed 
our white skins dry, our feet deep in 
meadow-sweet and ragged robin. 

While we were at Low Cop, Father 
became acquainted with Mr. Pellew — 
George Israel Pellew, rector of Peter- 
stowe parish. He was tall as my father, 
who stood six feet three. His head was 
bald, his beard snow white, his eyes 
blue. While he and Father talked, I 
sat in a great rocking-chair, which, as I 
rocked, moved slowly about the room. 
On the wall was a large picture of the 
bombardment of Alexandria, with Ad- 
miral Pellew, Mr. Pellew’s uncle, on his 
ship’s quarterdeck, a drawn sword in his 
hand. I pretended that my chair was a 
line-of-battle ship. Sometimes Mr. Pel- 
lew would say: “Captain, cease fire! 
Can’t you see the enemy’s forts are in 
ruins ?” 

Oh — Captain! — I liked that! Ships 
and the sea! 

W HEN I was a bit past nine, Ben Sar- 
sons, to whom my father’s first wife 
had been engaged, died. He had never 
married. And dying, he left all his for- 
tune to Auntie Kitty and Auntie Polly; 
left each of them seventy thousand pounds 
in direct legacy; as well as the residue 
of the estate when all was settled. Al- 
most at once Auntie Kitty married a 
man named Robert Latham Frere. She 
bought a fine house six miles from Peter- 
stowe — spacious lawns and shrubberies. 
Auntie Polly bought a place called High 
House, at the edge of Peterstowe com- 
mon land. Two apple orchards, shrub- 
beries of laurel, laurustine and lilac. 

So now Auntie Polly had Father and 
me to live with her. On Sunday I must 
go twice to church, and on Wednesday 
evening to prayer meeting. And no more 
could I play with the village children. I 
was a “gentleman’s son.” 

One day a telegram came, saying that 
Frank had died. And he died very poor, 
having lately lost all his money. I wore 
a band of black round my sleeve when 
I went back to Albert Villas. ... A man 
named O’Leary used to come to teach us 
Latin ; one day he caught me drawing the 
picture of a ship on my slate. He lifted 


MY LIFE AT SEA 


133 


my slate and brought it down on my 
head with such force that it broke, and 
my head went through it, the frame rest- 
ing on my shoulders. 

“Don’t draw ships! Draw anything 
you like, but not ships!” said Mr. 
O’Leary. And much I wondered. 

When Mr. O’Leary took us walking, he 
always took us by the road along the 
river. And always he stared at the ships, 
a sort of hunger in his dark eyes. Not 
only English ships came up the river. 
Sometimes there would be a French or a 
German, a Swedish or an Italian ship. 
And now and again there would be a ship 
with swarthy men on her decks, and a 
red and yellow flag flying. Then one of 
the older lads would call “Look! It’s 
Spaniards ! ” ( Spaniards, eh ? And there 
at once was Francis Drake, with Fro- 
bisher and his companions, and the sails 
of the Armada coming up from under the 
rim of England’s sea. Aye, there was 
then a sound as, of a drum beating!) 

There were steamers too, but they in- 
terested me less. Lacking in grace, they 
were, and had about them a sort of 
smoky cocksureness. Yet there was one 
that brought with her always the sound 
of a bugle. The Argo her name was, 
and long ago she had carried troops to 
the Crimea. Seeing her come round a 
bend, a lad thought of such words as 
Sebastopol, Inker man, and Balaclava. 
There was a quick vision of six hundred 
horses at the gallop, manes tossed, sabers 
shining. Then soon she would be gone 
by, and the bugle’s note was stilled. 

I N place of Mr. O’Leary a young soft- 
spoken man named Hook came to teach 
us our Latin. One Saturday afternoon 
he invited me to his home, and I had tea 
and cake with him and his white-haired 
mother. Then he bought a bag of ba- 
nanas and took me down to the docks. 
He hired a rowing boat, and while I sat 
in the stern eating bananas, rowed all up 
and down the docks. And to me there 
came a feeling of release, of great free- 
dom. Under the figureheads of ships we 
passed — figureheads representing women, 
and warriors, and goddesses. One ship 
had a red and yellow dragon for a figure- 
head, I mind. There was scroll-work 
about the ships’ bow, in gold and bright 
colors. And some ships’ names were in 
gold lettering. There was a scent of tar, 
of cordage, of brine. Sails hung to dry 
flapped gently in a little breeze. Men 
high on masts called one to another, in 
words unintelligible to me. And as we 


passed beneath the bow of one great ship, 
a sailor seated beneath her boom called 
down to me, “Hey, shipmate ! How 
about one of them bananas?” I tossed 
him one. He caught it, peeled it with 
a quick jerk, and crammed it whole into 
his mouth. “Shipmate!" A sailor had 
called me Shipmate! Ah, I cannot tell 
you how it was that then I felt! I was 
overjoyed, and filled with longing 
inexpressible to go with that sailor 
whithersoever he and that great ship of 
his might be going. Rio, Calcutta, 
Cape Horn ! 

It was soon after that that the holi- 
days came. And now Dolly came into 
my life again. She was about seventeen 
or so. Auntie Polly and I drove to Ross 
to meet her train. On the way back, I 
sat beside her. I had never seen anyone 
so beautiful. One night I had a fright- 
ening dream, and woke up in terror, and 
cried out. Auntie Polly called to ask 
what was the matter from her bedroom 
on the landing below, told me not to be 
silly and to go back to sleep. And then 
in a minute there was a soft foot on the 
stairs, and a glow of candle-light. Dolly 
was come. There was kindness in her 
eyes, and pity for a small boy afraid. She 
asked would I like her to read to me, 
and when I said yes, read to me from 
“Pilgrim’s Progress.” But I did not 
hear a word. I lay looking at her, wor- 
shiping her; adoring the sweet tones 
of her voice. She kissed me at last, and 
left me. And I went to sleep as chil- 
dren in heaven go to sleep. It was as last 
night, so real it is still. 

Many many nights are gone since then. 
But I see and hear her still. Oh, many 
many nights! A river winding to the 
sea. Cowslips in green meadows. Daf- 
fodils, primroses, wood anemones, dog 
violets. Blackbirds singing, and thrush- 
es at the dusk. Lambs gamboling, scent 
of sweet hay. Old Mr. Pellew’s voice, 
a clear bronze bell. And a small boy 
lost in wonder at the meaning of beauty, 
at the meaning of loneliness, at the mean- 
ing of hunger for a thing hid. And al- 
ways a consciousness of names — of ships, 
and salt water. Rio, Foo-chow, Cape 
Horn. Always that level gray horizon 
in the west. Ah, ships ! 

T IME passed, and things were better 
at Albert Villas ; I was getting well up 
in school. Now I was allowed at times 
to go out alone, and ever I went by the 
river or docks. My lesson-books were 
covered with drawings of ships. 


134 


REAL EXPERIENCES 


Sometimes by the docks I dared to 
speak to a sailor. But sailors seemed 
never to have much to say to a young lad. 
Yet there was a day when one did speak 
to me. I was wandering one late after- 
noon along a dock when I heard loud 
words harshly spoken across the street ; 
and I saw a big man quarreling with a 
little woman. Cursing her he was, and 
beating her with a stick. So over the 
street I strode, large as round thirteen or 
so might be, and began to take the wom- 
an’s part. At once she turned on me, 
and the two of them, shouting, threatened 
to cut out my lights and my liver, and 
called me by many names the like of 
which I had not heard before. 

Then it was that three sailors came 
across the street. While one knocked the 
man down, another walked off with the 
woman, who now was all smiles. The 
third turned to me, looked at me solemn- 
ly, and speaking in a slow drawled voice, 
said: “That’s life fer ye, sonny boy! 
W’en a big man’s fightin’ a little man, 
take the little feller’s part, sure enough. 
W’en two big or two little fellers is fight- 
in’, let ’em fight and settle it. But w’en 
ye see any kind of a man at all, big or 
little, raisin’ hell wid any woman at all 
— lay low an’ ’vast heavin’, or ye’ll have 
the two of ’em down yer neck, an’ the 
woman furdest o’ the two. ’Tis jest a 
way they have, sonny. Ye kin pin yer 
trust in a ship, but don’t be pinnin’ it in 
no woman. . . . Have ye a pocket-knife, 
sonny?” 

I handed him my pocket knife, and he 
cut a chew of tobacco from a black plug, 
put the rest of the plug in his pocket, and 
my knife with it, and walked off. “Please, 
sir, you have my knife!” I called. To 
which, looking over his shoulder he re- 
plied: “No, sonny. ’Tis mine now, fer 
the advice I give ye.” 

When I was fourteen, I left Albert Vil- 
las and took an examination at one of 
the great public schools. Passing it 
gained me a scholarship that took fifty 
pounds a year off my tuition fees for 
three years. 

S CHOOL terms came and went. The 
seasons passed. When I came home 
for my holidays, my father would be sit- 
ting in his great high-backed chair by the 
open fire. As I entered the room he’d 
look up. “Is that you, my son?” And 
then : “Tonight I shall sleep like a top.” 
I was his all. He mine. 

I was a sixth-form boy, and allowed to 
carry a walking-stick : I could read 


Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Ovid. Long since 
I’d marched with Caesar’s legions over 
Gaul and Britain ; seen British spearmen 
fall before the broadswords: seen cap- 
tives walk in Roman triumphs. Over the 
sea was a new land where my father had 
ridden ’neath a new flag. “The bloody 
owld Yankee.” Tea chests, in Boston 
harbor. Indians yelling, tomahawks in 

red hands The Matabele war was just 

over. Lobengula, the Matabele chief, 
had been to London. Not long since, 
Gordon had died at Khartoum. . . . Not 
long since a man named Stevenson had 
written a book, Treasure Island. I 
watched the ships pass. 

And then there came a holiday when I 
went to London to stay a while at Auntie 
Clarissa’s, Dolly was there. Twenty-five 
now. Soft-voiced, gray-eyed. I felt 
abashed in her presence. She jyas differ- 
ent to all other girls. And when I went 
back to school and other boys that night 
talked smut in the dormitory I stuffed 
my fingers in my ears. . . . Fresh-come 
from altar steps. 

A LETTER came from Auntie Polly. 

Which did I want to do : enter Guy’s 
Hospital to train to be a doctor, or go 
into the paymaster department of the 
navy? She sent literature. From be- 
ing a clerk in the paymaster department, 
I could work my way into the combatant 
branch of the navy. . . . Drake and Frob- 
isher — Jarvis, Howe, and Hood — Colling- 
wood, Nelson. I knew the names of all. 

I gave away my silk-worms, and my 
pet grass snake, and my box with lizards 
in it. No time for aught but study now. 
And by and by, I went to London, took 
the exam — and failed. Eight vacancies, 
a hundred and twenty candidates. 

Auntie Polly engaged a young clergy- 
man who lived at Ross, three miles away, 
to cram me for the November exam. 
Day by day I walked the three miles and 
back. Home by one o’clock, to study all 
afternoon. Going and coming, I leaned 
on the parapet of the old stone bridge 
that spanned the river ; said to the flow- 
ing stream : “Tell the sea that I am com- 
ing soon.” 

Blinx followed me daily, flying along 
the hedges, or perched on my shoulder — 
a jackdaw a village boy had taken from 
its nest in an elm behind the church. At 
night he slept on my window-sill. At 
dawn his cawing woke me, to go to my 
books before breakfast. While I studied 
in the afternoon, he perched on my shoul- 
der, and gently pecked my ears. 


MY LIFE AT SEA 


135 


August came, and my father saddled 
the pony and rode off to visit friends in 
Hereford. Eighty-seven years old, an 
eleven-mile ride. 

Came a day of wind and driving rain. 
Just back from Ross, I sat at lunch with 
Auntie Polly. The dining-room door 
opened. My father stepped in, mud from 
shoulder to foot. I helped him to his 
chair, filled and lit his pipe. He had 
been riding slowly, a mile from home, his 
feet not in the stirrups, the reins not in 
his hands, when a dog ran from the hedge 
and leaped at the pony’s nose. Leaving 
him lying on the hard road, the pony 
trotted home. He walked the last mile, 
alone. 

Undressing him that night, I asked: 
“Do I hurt you, Father?” 

He answered me: “You never hurt me, 
my son.” 

F OR a time he walked as far as into 
the garden. Then, always indoors, 
he sat in his great chair. Came a day 
when he sat on the edge of his bed, his 
great chair empty. Next day he stayed 
in bed. And that day I stayed home. 

Auntie Polly said, “You must go to 
your tutor, dear.” 

“No. I stay with my father,” said I. 
And noting my tone, she was silent. 

“Why are you not at your studies, my 
son?” he asked one day, waking from 
stupor. 

“Pm not going in the navy. Pm going 
to sea in the merchant service, Father,” 
I said. 

“You’ll find it a hard life, my son,” 
said he, and in his voice was a ring of 
pride that his son had chosen a hard life. 
They were the last words ever he spoke 
to me. 

That afternoon, wandering, he cried a 
woman’s name. Not that of Auntie 
Polly’s mother, not that of mine. 

“My rose of roses ! Oh, my dear rose 
of roses!” he cried. 

“Some old flame,” said Auntie Polly, 
scornful-voiced. But I — what was it to 
me? It was my father’s business. Who 
' shall come between a lad and his sire ? 

Clang — clang — clang — clang .... eighty- 
seven times, once for each year of the 
life that was over: the church-bell peal- 
ing over the meadows, the fallow fields, 
the woodlands, the brooks, the sere winter 
hedges, of Peterstowe perish. 

It was November, with snow falling. 
I stood by his coffin. In the stone-floored 
kitchen sat his bearers ; eating, in the Old 
Country fashion, cold roast beef and 


bread and cheese, washing them down 
with ale. And presently the bedroom 
door opened, and Jones of Low Cop; 
Thomas of Bowers; Bill Weevin, shep- 
herd at Flann farm ; Jack Evans, wagon- 
er at Flann farm; Padham the black- 
smith; Jimmie Link the poacher; and 
Jack Hall of the Yew Tree Inn came in. 
In silence they lifted, in silence bore him 
away, down the stone front steps, past 
laurel and lilac, out to the lane. Walking 
alone, I followed. Behind me my aunts, 
his daughters. Behind them Polly Dob- 
bins, the servant girl. No others. In 
deep snow we walked slowly, the bear- 
ers with their black hats in their hands. 
A little way from the churchyard gate 
Mr. Pellew met us, snow falling on his 
bald head, on his long white surplice. 

“1 am the resurrection and the life.” 

Next day I went to Hereford to stay 
awhile with my father’s friends. Three 
days later a letter came. Blinx was 
dead. He’d refused to take food from 
anyone ; had sought me everywhere, 
cawing. A little blackbird dead for love 
of a lad. . . . 

On my return, Aunt Polly said that it 
would be beautiful for me to be a curate, 
and that we would go to Ross together 
to consult my curate tutor about my pre- 
paring for the ministry. 

“Pm going to sea,” said I. 

She thought that I was referring to the 
navy clerkship, and that I had not rea- 
lized that, through having missed the 
November examination, my chances there 
were done. “You can’t go to sea, dear,” 
she replied. 

“I’m going to sea in the merchant ser- 
vice,” I retorted. 

W HETHER she was then aware that 
I was my father’s son, or whether 
she realized that for me to go to sea 
would cost her less than preparation for 
the ministry, I don’t know. She toddled 
off to visit an old fellow who lived not 
far away and was interested in a Liver- 
pool shipping firm. He’d been friendly 
with my father, and he told her he would 
write to the son of the head of the firm 
on my behalf. A week or so later there 
came a letter from that young man, say- 
ing that he had found me a berth as an 
apprentice in the ship Helenslea, bound 
for West Australia. And then again I 
had names in my head. Ah, I liked the 
name Helenslea. There was music in it. 
And so also there was music in West 
Australia. I dug out the atlas and pored 
over it. But in a few days there came 


136 


MY LIFE AT SEA 


another letter telling me that after all I 
could not go in the Helenslea. A lad 
whose parents had influence with her 
owners had been given the berth that 
was to have been mine. My disappoint- 
ment was bitter. 

Disconsolately I wandered the win- 
ter roads, wondering should ever I get to 
sea. And very gloomy I was when I saw 
the Helenslea’s sailing reported in the 
shipping column of the newspaper. You 
cannot always tell, eh? From that day 
to this no eye has seen the Helenslea. 

A letter came from Auntie Clarissa, in- 
viting me to go and stay with her for a 
time. And very glad I was to go. And 
gladder yet when I found that Dolly was 
there. She was more than ever lovely. 
Loveliness born of bitter grief. She had 
been in love, and the man whom she 
loved had died. In her bitter sorrow she 
had tried to end her life, that she might 
go to him. But now she had gone to 
the Bible for solace, prayer the fountain 
whereat she drank deep. Knowing that I 
also was lone, she looked at me from 
soft tender eyes. I was shy in her pres- 
ence, yet liked to be near her. Yet also 
I liked very well to be with Ede, her 
younger sister. Ede and I went to cheap 
music-halls together. 

A FTER a while another letter came 
. from that young man. I was to join 
a ship in Liverpool in a few days. And 
the ship’s name was nicer than even 
Helenslea. The men who called on Ede 
looked at me condescendingly — a sailor ! 
City men, content with the gas-lit offices 
of foggy days. Men to whom such words 
as Rio, Callao, Cape Horn were naught 
but mere names. 

The night ere I returned to Peterstowe 
to get ready to go, Dolly called me to her 
bedroom. I see it yet. The snow of her 
pillow, the Bible on the chair beside. 
She had been away that day, visiting 
Auntie Kitty in London, and while she 
was there, a package had come to Auntie 
Kitty from Auntie Polly. A golden ring, 
set with pearls. Something more for 
Auntie Kitty to pawn, to raise money 
for Uncle Robert’s dissipations. Auntie 
Kitty had pawned the ring, and Dolly 
had got from her the pawn-ticket, and 
later redeemed the ring. “It was your 
mother’s,” she said, and gave it to me. 
Never had I had aught that had been my 
mother’s. Bidding me good-by next day, 
Dolly kissed my cheek. 


When I came to Peterstowe, Auntie 
Polly saw the ring on my finger, and said 
sharply, as though I were a small boy 
who had done something wrong: “Give 
me that ring at once. Where did you 
get it?” 

“I don’t give you my mother’s ring to 
pawn,” I retorted. And she said no more, 
for the tone of my voice was a tone new 
to her. 

T HE night ere I left to join my ship 
there was a concert in the rectory 
barn. I was late arriving ; it was crammed 
with the people of Peterstowe parish. 
But when I appeared, a farmer took my 
arm and led me to a seat that had been 
reserved for me. I heard a voice say, 
“Young maister, ’ee be gwine away come 
marnin’.” 

The rafters shook, to the voices of 
Peterstowe parish. 

D’ye ken John Peel with his coat so gay? 
D’ye ken John Peel at the break of day? 
D’ye ken John Peel when he’s far far away 
By the cry of his pack in the morning? 

And then a farmer rose and walked to 
the platform, and with kindly eyes turn- 
ing, to me, he sang — a song such as never 
before I had heard in the rectory barn: 

When his ship is trimmed and ready, 
And the last goodbyes are done 
When the tugboat’s lying waiting, 

And Jack aboard is gone, 

Then the lasses fall a-weeping 
As they watch his vessel’s track, 

For all their landsman lovers 
Are nothing after Jack. 

And then, again: 

With a long long pull, and a strong strong 
pull, 

Cheerily, lads, yo-ho! 

And we’ll drink tonight to the midshipmite, 
Cheerily, lads, yo-ho ! Cheerily, lads, yo-ho ! 

And I knew then that the concert was 
being given for “young maister,” who 
was to be gone in the morning. And 
there was a lump in my throat. 

“God bless you, my boy. I hope you’ll 
succeed. I know you will if you try,” 
said old Mr. Pellew, taking my hand in 
the doorway. And I walked from the 
barn, and turned from the rectory drive, 
through the gate into the churchyard. 
And I paused by a grave. 

“You’ll find it a hard life, my son,” I 
seemed to hear — pride in the voice. 


The next installment of this fine autobiography takes you to sea on a windjammer to 
share with Mr. Adams the experiences that helped to make him a great writer. 



By Mabel Stark 


T wenty-three years i’ve spent 
studying and training tigers. I’ve 
been clawed and slashed and chewed 
until there is hardly an inch of my body 
unmarked by tooth or nail. And still I 
love my tigers as a mother loves her 
children even when they are wayward. 
To me, they are the most magnificent 
expression of all animal life. 

The tiger has something no other 
jungle beast has. You can cow a lion, 
but never His Lordship. You can sub- 
due but never conquer tigers — except by 
love. And now I’ve told the secret of all 
successful animal training. I learned it 
at the risk of my life. 

Countless times I’ve thought my num- 
ber was up when Whitey or his sister 
Nellie, or one of the other sixteen brutes 
in my act have sprung and left a slash or 
a scar as a souvenir. Once in 1928 two 
of them got me down and tried to finish 
me. But I was back with the show in 
six weeks, minus a deltoid muscle in my 
shoulder, and walking with a stiff leg 


that never has completely unlimbered. I 
know I won’t die until it’s my time. And 
then I’d rather go out fighting it out 
with my tigers, than with a couple of 
starched nurses slithering around, or doc- 
tors shaking their heads over me. 

I’ve been successful in training tigers 
because I love them. I never tire of 
studying them. You can’t get bored with 
life when your work constantly demands 
everything you’ve got — when you know 
that every time you step into a cage full 
of the glorious beasts it is going to be a 
battle of will and wits. . . . 

I’m not afraid. I like the challenge 
of their roaring defiance. I like facing 
them with just a buggy whip and a chair 
and the knowledge that my will is strong- 
er than their rippling muscles. I can 
make them cringe with my voice or purr 
with pleasure. It’s the biggest thrill I 
know. That’s why I’m playing a lone 
hand today — for men are jealous crea- 
tures ; they naturally want to come first 
in a woman’s heart. 


138 


REAL EXPERIENCES 


Don’t get me wrong. I’m no sour old 
maid. When the spring moon is a young 
thing and the circus caravan starts out 
on the road, something stirs down where 
my heart ought to be. . . . Until I re- 
member another spring, and a chap who 
joined up to handle the lion act. He 
wasn’t afraid of anything. He laughed 
when we told him to watch his step with 
a grizzled old lion that had killed our 
boss animal-man the season before. He 
laughed when I walked out of the tent 
and wouldn’t watch him work, because 
I knew fear for the first time in my life 
as I saw him, lithe and daring, cracking 
his whip and shouting at his snarling 
beasts. . . . 

He was smiling when he died in my 
dressing-room after Nero got him. The 
show was still going on. The crowd in- 
side the big top didn’t know those lions 
had finished him when they got him 
down. They thought it just a gag — a 
new thrill. That’s what he wanted them 
to think. He got up and walked out of 
the arena where three beasts had ripped 
him open — walked till he reached my 
dressing-wagon, and keeled over. 

The doctors couldn’t do anything but 
ease him out. He opened his eyes and 
saw their faces bent over him — turned 
and smiled at me. 

“It’s all right, Mab,” he whispered. 
“That’s the way I wanted it to be. It’s 
been a good show. Heaven can’t be any 
better than these two months we’ve been 
together — or hell any worse than those 
claws ripping me open. It’s been a good 
show.” 

I had to leave him and go on with my 
act. The crowd in the tent was shout- 
ing with laughter at the clowns. They 
didn’t know until the next day that our 
lion-trainer was dead. By that time we 
had hit another town. Both shows were 
a sell-out. Every one wanted to see the 
lions work — the same lions that had 
killed a man just the night before. 

O F course there was another trainer 
on the job. There’s always another 
to step in and put on a good show. At 
least, there is for a lion act. I’ve never 
had an understudy. I’m the only woman 
who likes tigers; everyone else steers 
clear of them. If one of them gets me, 
my tigers never will work again. Per- 
haps they will miss me. You see, that 
eight minutes twice a day in the steel 
arena is the only freedom they have from 
their narrow traveling cages. They may 
snarl and roar and slash out with mur- 


derous claws, trying to get me, but they 
would miss me if I were gone. 

If they do get me, I’ll go out the way 
of all good animal trainers. And I’ll 
say : “It was a good show ! ” 

W HITEY was first to make a try for 
me this spring. It was during dress 
rehearsal at San Diego. Whitey weighs 
eight hundred and fifty pounds and meas- 
ures eleven feet from nose to tail tip. He 
has a disposition like a dictator. When 
anything gets in his way, he tries to re- 
move it by force. The boss has been 
after me for the past three seasons to 
take him out of my act. 

“He’ll get you yet, Mabel. Better be 
safe than sorry.” 

I just shrug. “He’s the handsomest 
cat of the sixteen, and I won’t spoil my 
act. Leave us alone. We’ll fight it out, 
and may the best man win.” 

The night of dress rehearsal the cats 
were all nervous. It was the first time 
for several months they’d worked with a 
band. A band is necessary for tempo in 
a good animal act. It helps the trainer 
and the animals swing in rhythm. But 
for the first few performances after the 
cats have been enjoying winter-quarters’ 
leisure, that band is so much dynamite. 

That night they were all edgy, and I 
had to shout myself hoarse to be heard 
over the band. As I was calling them 
for the pyramid, I stumbled over the 
chair I’d been using to keep Princess, 
the roll-over tiger, out of clawing dis- 
tance. As I went down, I instinctively 
grabbed my pistol lying on the edge of 
one of the pedestals. Whitey was just 
ready to jump from his place to the for- 
mation pedestal. Instead, he sprang at 
me. I did a Tom Mix lying there on my 
back, and fired the blank cartridge in his 
face. I can still feel his hot breath and 
see his green eyes glaring into mine. For 
a moment he crouched over me, then sud- 
denly turned and slunk away to his place 
while I scrambled breathless to my feet. 
It wasn’t the singe of the powder on his 
whiskers that stopped him. That was 
no more than a flea-bite to him. There’s 
only one answer — it just wasn’t my time, 
and Whitey knew it. 

Our second accident almost cost the 
life of Pasha, my smartest tiger. The 
runway broke when the tigers were leav- 
ing the arena at the close of my Act 
One matinee. I heard shouts and com- 
motion as I was taking my bow, and I 
ran from the tent. 

“A tiger is loose!” shouted the man- 


HOLD THAT TIGER! 


139 


ager, dashing up to me, jerking out the 
gun he always carries. 

“Put away that gun,” I snapped. 
“Which tiger is it ?” 

“They all look alike to me,” he snorted. 
“It ran under those wagons over there. 
I’ve told the boys to shoot to kill ! ” 

Three cage men were closing in from 
different directions with drawn guns. 

“Put those guns down,” I yelled. “I’ll 
get the tiger ! ” 

Suddenly the tiger streaked out from 
beneath the wagon and came directly to- 
ward our manager — and bang went his 
gun, right in the tiger’s face. I knocked 
it from his hand before he could shoot 
again. The cat threw back its head as 
the shot caught it in the nose, and let 
out a roar as blood spurted from the 
wound. 

“Pasha!” I called. “Pasha, down!” 

Pasha turned and glared at me, tail 
swishing murderously. I walked toward 
her slowly, purring, calling her name. 
The .men were shouting for me to get out 
of the way so they could get her before 
she sprang for me. I moved deliberately 
so they couldn’t aim without shooting 
me too, as I said: “Poor kitty! Down!” 

With a little whine Pasha lay down 
and let me come close. 

“Bring up her cage,” I called softly. 
“I’ll get her into it. She’s badly hurt.” 

I stood there talking and purring to 
the wounded cat until the men pushed 
up the cage. She jumped into it gladly 
as I stepped back, calling her. 

As the door shut, I turned furiously on 
the manager. “You almost killed my 
best cat. Pasha wouldn’t hurt anyone. 
Why didn’t you call her, instead of 
shooting ?” 

He looked sheepish. “I’m no tiger- 
trainer. How could I tell it was Pasha?” 

I sent the men hurrying to get warm 
water and disinfectant, and after I wiped 
the blood from the cat’s nose, tried to lo- 
cate the bullet. We never did find it. 
She must have swallowed it as she threw 
up her head after it hit, cutting a clean 
hole through the roof of her mouth ! 

P ASHA not only works in my group, 
but waltzes, and rides an elephant in 
a special number. She was pretty sick 
for several days. So was I; it meant a 
big loss if she died. And even if she got 
well, she might be too nervous to work 
after that harrowing experience. Night 
and day I worked with her, and gradually 
the wound healed. She was terribly 
frightened the first day I took her back 


into the ring, but gradually that is wear- 
ing off. 

The show went all right in Los Angeles 
in spite of the knee-deep mud that 
bogged a couple of the elephants and 
mired down three of the wagons so they 
had to be left behind for two days. I 
took Sonny Boy out of the act for three 
days, because Sonny has only been work- 
ing a few months, and still has ideas that 
I’d make just a nice mouthful for him. 
He’s a handsome brute, almost as big 
as Whitey, and I’ve taught him to throw 
himself up on his hind-legs every time I 
pass in front of him and lift my arm. He 
looks like a monster hous^-cat sitting 
up — slightly silly and decidedly self- 
conscious. He does his trick with a 
realistic snarl that brings down the 
house. The trouble is, he means it. And 
when he’s released to leave the cage, he 
always makes a spring at me that would 
be just too bad if I didn’t side-step it. 

I N Santa Barbara, Whitey’s sister, 
Nellie, drew real blood in our daily 
tussle. Thereby she won an honorary 
membership in her brother’s fraternity. 
Nellie rolls a ball, and generally does it 
with good enough grace. But every now 
and then the family blood crops up, and 
she strikes out. The night in Santa Bar- 
bara she wasn’t in a ball-rolling mood. 

We argued and argued before I got her 
over to the ball. I was barricaded be- 
hind the chair in my hand, and cracking 
down on her nose to edge her toward it. 
If tigers didn’t have sensitive noses, no 
one could handle them. They’re as stub- 
born as they are fearless, and the more 
they know a trainer, the less fear they 
have. Lions are just the other way. You 
can cow them and break their spirit until 
they become reasonably docile. But you 
never can tame a tiger. They’re born 
killers, and that’s the way they die. 

Nellie finally got to the ball ; but as I 
turned, thinking she was going to jump 
on it, she sprang for me instead and 
caught my left hand. One stroke of her 
powerful claws stripped the flesh to the 
bone. Blood spurted out like a red gey- 
ser. I jerked off the cape of my white- 
and-gold costume and wrapped it around 
my hand as I shouted at her : 

“Nellie ! Get up on that ball ! ” 

For a second she hesitated, glaring at 
me. There was the same look I’d seen in 
Whitey’s eyes — the same unwilling sub- 
mission — as she turned her head away 
and jumped on the ball, rolling it docilely 
to the end of the groove, turning and 


HOLD THAT TIGER! 


rolling it back again, then flashing 
through the air for her seat. 

The crowd liked it. They thought it 
was a good thrill 1 Two thoughts were 
racing through my head : “Gosh, my best 
uniform is ruined ! ” For the blood was 
soaking through the cape and dripping 
all over the place as I finished the act. 

And the other thought: “They ap- 
plauded when those lions got him tool” 

In my dressing-wagon an anxious- 
faced young doctor washed my hand with 
stinging alcohol and carbolic, while the 
boss scowled worriedly. 

“What will we do? You can’t work 
now ! ” 

The doctor nodded emphatically. “Cer- 
tainly she can’t work, for three weeks at 
least. This hand has to go into a splint. 
. . . I’m sorry to do this, Miss Stark,” 
— as he poured antiseptic into the. raw 
wound. “I know how it must hurt. Shall 
I give you a whiff of ether ?” 

I glared at him. “Any time I want 
ether, I’ll let you know. Hurry and clean 
out that wound.” 

Then I turned to the boss. “And don’t 
look so scared; I’m all right. The act 
goes on as usual tomorrow.” 

The boss’ face cleared. He patted my 
shoulder, exclaiming, “Good girl!” 

The doctor stared at me. “You can’t 
work sixteen tigers with one hand in a 
splint.” 

I laughed. “Listen, Doc : You haven’t 
been with this show but a few weeks, or 
you’d know that arms and legs don’t 
count. It’s nerve ! ” I held out my good 
hand. “See that! Not a quiver!” 

He shook his head. “You’re the 
strangest woman I ever met. And the 
gamest. Just the same, you’re insane not 
to take better care of yourself.” 

“Certainly I’m insane,” I agreed. “But 
I like my brand and I’ll stick to it. 
Thanks for bandaging me up.” 

He put his stuff away in his case and 
started off. “I’ll see you first thing in 
the morning.” 

“Oh, no, you won’t. I’m broadcasting 
at nine-thirty — telling folks how to train 
tigers, and what nice back-yard pets 
they make. Drop around before the 
afternoon performance, and we’ll change 
these wrappings. They’re too tight.” 

“But Miss Stark — ” 

“Shush!” I waved him off. “I must 
get my beauty-sleep, or Whitey won’t 
sing for me tomorrow.” 

He went off looking so chagrined that 
I was sorry for him. Doctors always 
look at me that way. 


[ l) lasted 

This miner twice owes 
his life to his father . 


"T AST hole of the fourth round — 
twenty-four feet — a hundred and 
1-~A forty-four dollars.” That was the 
way I talked to myself all the time when 
I was contracting on that job. Alone, a 
thousand feet underground, almost the 
end of a shift with another eight hours 
to go, a fellow does talk to himself. 

My dad and I were getting six dollars 
a foot for breaking a six-by-six tunnel 
down on Nine level in the old Silver 
Fleece gold-mine. But ask me if we 
earned it! Dad was running the hoist 
for me now. He was sixty-five years 
old; but like myself, he had another 
shift to do; he would spend half of the 
night sharpening our drill steel, while 
I was down here mucking out. We’d 
hired a German kid called Dutch to do 
the rest of the mucking. Though time 
meant money to us, we couldn’t spend 
all of our time working; the sixteen 
hours a day that we did work were more 
than tough. 

“Long steel on the last hole,” I hummed 
again, and cocked her back. Through 
the fog from the exhaust, that piece of 
liner steel swayed back and forth like a 
cobweb in the wind, or at least seemed 
to. My head and lamp were doing all 
the swaying. The steel was eating into 
a glistening bulwark of granite at a rate 
of six inches a minute. 

As soon as this last hole was deep 
enough, I pulled down the machine from 
the column to which it was bolted, and 
loaded it with the dull steel, air-hose, 
and water-hose into the bucket on the 
end of the hoist-cable, and pulled the 
bell-wire, signaling my dad, “Up.” 

Pretty soon the stuff moved out of 
sight, sliding along up the skipway, and 
I fell to work loading the sixteen holes 
I’d drilled. That was tedious work and 
couldn’t be rushed. First I tamped four 
split' sticks of powder into the back of 
each hole, using a wooden tamper. Then 
I put in the primer. That is a stick of 
powder with a hole punched in it for the 
cap end of a five-foot length of fuse to 
fit into. This one stick, set off by the 


140 


%lnderground 

By Dick Groman 



fuse and the blasting cap, in turn sets 
off the rest of the powder in the hole. 
On top of the primer I tamped nine more 
sticks of strong stuff — I was using forty- 
five-per-cent supposed-to-be smokeless 
gelatine. 

And there she was ready to be spit 
(lighted). I went over to the opposite 
side of the winze (an inclined shaft) to 
get my spitting lamp ready. Most miners 
use a short piece of lighted fuse called 
a spitter to light the fuses in a round of 
shots, but I always lighted fuses with my 
head-lamp. This was a doubtful process, 
because if the lamp went out suddenly 
after half of the fuses in a round were 
lighted, one would find himself in an 
embarrassing position; but using the 
lamp was easier. 

While I was putting fresh carbide into 
the lamp, the bucket came creeping down 
again and came to rest on the edge of the 
sump, as if it were sneaking up on me. 
You see, what I was driving was a short 
cross-cut (tunnel at right angles to the 
vein) from the bottom of a three-hun- 
dred-and-eighty-foot winze. The winze 
was sunk along the vein, which dipped 
at about seventy-five degrees — fifteen de- 
grees off vertical. At the bottom of the 
winze was a sump about five feet square 
and four feet deep, where water collected 
and was pumped out during Dutch’s shift. 
The round of holes I was about to spit 
was eighteen feet or so from the south 
side of the sump. All these details are, 
or rather were, important. 

A S soon as I got the head-lamp burn- 
. ing with a steady flame, I carried 
it back into the cross-cut and set it down. 
I took out my knife and cut off the ends 
of the fuses; then I went back to the 
winze and pulled the bell-wire five times. 
That means, “Hell’s bells,” or, “Ready to 
shoot.” r fhe bucket moved up a couple 
of feet and then came back to rest on 
the edge of the sump. That was Dad’s 
way of saying, “O.K.” so I spit the round. 

Things sometimes happen so irrevo- 
cably after a long succession of gathering 


incidents that, looking back at the chain 
of cause and effect, we seem to see 
divine or devilish purpose at work. So 
it was at the Silver Fleece. After pre- 
paring the equivalent of twenty-five 
pounds of nitro-glycerine, timed to explode 
within seven and a half minutes, I saun- 
tered over to the bucket, climbed up on 
its rim with my wet and slippery boots, 
and grasped the bell-wire. At that in- 
stant — I don’t know how — my feet went 
out on each side of me, and I found 
myself standing up to my waist in icy 
water, jolted half-senseless, and sur- 
rounded by total darkness. 

I T was the acrid odor of burning fuses 
that brought me back to my senses. 
Reaching up to my cap hastily, I was 
relieved to find the lamp would still burn. 
I started to climb out of the sump, when 
I noticed something hanging on my 
shoulder. It was the bell-wire! In 
falling, I had broken the wire and rung 
the signal to hoist. The bucket was out 
of sight. 

Don’t ask me what I thought; I 
thought too many things. Ask me what 
I knew! ... I knew I couldn’t ring 
my dad to send the bucket down. I 
knew I couldn’t climb out ; my first 
round of holes three days before had 
broken the lowest thirty feet off the 
ladder. I couldn’t climb the air- or 
water-lines which were within reach. 
And I knew, though reason almost failed 
to function, that the greatest danger was 
of drowning, should the concussion from 
the shots stun me rather than kill me 
outright. 

Weak from fear and nauseated by the 
smoke from the fuses, I braced my feet 
against the uneven bottom of the sump, 
leaning against its south side. My eyes 
were pressed tightly shut ; my teeth were 
clenched; and my hands were pressed 
141 


BLASTED UNDERGROUND 


with all my strength over my ears. My 
only chance of escaping lay in staying 
there in the sump, as low in the water 
as I dared, to protect my head from 
flying rock. The water should deaden 
the concussion somewhat. 

Just as I got set, I remembered some- 
thing about long-range gun crews pro- 
tecting their ear-drums. What was it? 
I fumbled through my mind for the 
answer, while the dull hiss of the fuses 
and drip of water magnified to a clamor. 
The biting smoke from the fuses hurt my 
eyes and lungs almost beyond endurance. 
Then I had the answer: artillerymen 
opened their mouths to equalize the 
pressure on their ear-drums. I opened my 
mouth, prayed, cursed, and waited. 

It came. I didn’t hear it; I felt it — 
that “cut hole” number one. I felt them 
all. Every one of them hurt me, and 
1 counted them — one — two — three — four 
i . . . sixteen ! I knew the dust and 
smoke would smother me, but I couldn’t 
move. I think I felt myself being lifted ; 
I’m not sure. . . . 

My dad is twice the reason I’m here 
today. When the empty bucket reached 
the hoist-room at the top of the shaft, 
two or three shots had gone. Dad didn’t 
know where I’d fallen off, or if I had ; 
but he did the only thing that could 
possibly save his son’s life: he dropped 
the bucket. It was sitting beside me 
by the time the sixth shot went. Then 
Dad gathered up a rope, climbed down 
the ladder beside the skids in the winze, 
reaching the bottom rung thirty feet 
above my head a minute after the last 
shot. He fixed his rope, slid down it, 
found me, lifted me into the bucket, 
climbed back out on the rope and ladder 
- three hundred and eighty feet! — and 
then hoisted me out of that hell of poison 
smoke. 

Yes, and Dad had weathered sixty-five 
summers already. If I could, I’d write 
more about a dad like that. 

It is interesting now to note that I 
never entirely lost consciousness, al- 
though I stood barely out of line and 
only some six steps away from a round 
of two hundred and twenty-four sticks of 
blasting powder. 

I was deaf for only about four hours, 
but my ears rang for over a week. I 
didn’t drill my round the next day ; but 
I did the next and all following ones. 

We fixed up the bottom section of 
ladder before I went to work again, and 
thereafter I climbed into the bucket, 
rather than trying to stand on its rim. 


wordsman ’s 
Hazard 


By DURIS DeJONG 

I T all began because of a scene in the 
motion-picture “Lives of a Bengal 
Lancer,” in which British officers in 
northern India, armed with spears, and 
mounted on swift horses, hunt wild 
boars. My friends Hal and John agreed 
that this kind of hunting couldn’t offer 
many thrills, because there didn’t seem to 
be the slightest element of danger. 

I remarked that it would be good sport 
to hunt boars with a sword. There would 
be some risk attached to it, of course; 
but, I argued, if toreadors without any 
knowledge of fencing and good footwork 
can kill a one-ton bull with a sword, why 
couldn’t I, a good fencer, kill a much 
smaller animal with my trusted epee? 

They agreed that they couldn’t see any 
reason why not. We are fencers, all three 
of us : Hal Corbin was a member of the 
1932 American Olympic Fencing Team ; 
John Ely is the present Pacific Coast 
saber champion ; and I have represented 
my native country, Holland, in the 1928 
and 1932 Olympic Games, and have held 
the Pacific Coast three-weapon cham- 
pionship for the past three years. 

So we decided to go after wild boar, 
and give me a chance to kill one with 
my sword. We were told that the island 
of Santa Cruz, some twenty miles off the 
coast halfway between Los Angeles and 
Santa Barbara, was full of them. 

People who had been to the island to 
kill wild boars, tried to impress us with 
the danger of facing a charging boar with 
anything less effective than a heavy rifle. 
We only laughed at them. Weren’t we 
fencers, quick of hand and faster on our 
feet than they? Couldn’t we, trained as 
we were, easily vault clear over the ani- 
mal when it charged? 

We had to take firearms, however, as 
the animals won’t charge, or even come 
out in the open unless provoked. John, 
who is a good shot with a revolver, 
planned to take his .38. Hal, the stolid, 
the unimaginative, the conservative, said 
he was going to take his big 7mm. Lebel 
rifle, just in case — despite our jeers. 

142 



So one morning at daybreak, we set out 
in Hal’s twenty-seven-foot sloop with 
auxiliary motor. The weather was all 
right in the morning, ’but shortly after 
noon the water became rougher and 
rougher. For hours we wallowed in the 
trough, but our little motor kept on chug- 
ging away until we got within protection 
of the island, and at sundown we landed. 

The island of Santa Cruz is one of the 
most beautiful spots along the Pacific 
Coast. It is owned by the Caire family 
of San Francisco. With the exception of 
the farm-site, which forms a little self- 
contained village in the wilderness, and 
some fishing camps here and there along 
the coast, it is uninhabited and wild. The 
island is some thirty miles in length — 
uite mountainous, with Mount Diablo, 
fteen hundred feet high, in the middle, 
and two small rivers. It is overrun with 
wild boars, small foxes, and numerous 
kinds of peculiar birds. The Caire farm- 
house has its vegetable gardens, fruit 
trees, cattle, horses, dogs ; great herds of 
sheep, hundreds of thousands of them, 
wild sheep that leap from rock to rock 
like mountain goats, herded by Indian 
shepherds, roam the island, and seem to 
be on friendly terms with the wild boars. 

We slept the sleep of exhaustion that 
night, after our battle with the waves and 
the wind, under the great pine trees that 
grow right up to the stony beach. The 
next morning one of the watch-dogs of 
the farm woke us by licking us; after 
breakfast we went up to the farmhouse 
for hunting licenses, and for information 
about the best spots for hunting boars. 

_ Just as the Santa Cruz wild sheep are 
different from the domestic docile under- 
done-mutton-chops, the wild pigs are en- 
tirely different from the animals to which 
we are accustomed. The boars are the 
descendants of a number of ordinary 
pigs put down on the island some two 
hundred years ago by some pirate ship 
as an easily accessible meat supply. The 


pigs soon ran wild; their characteristics 
changed through the generations. They 
became wild, lean, fast and dangerous. 
Full-grown boars may be anywhere from 
a hundred to four hundred and fifty 
pounds in weight — vicious beasts, with a 
tough black hide, fairly long legs, thick 
bones, stringy muscles, a huge, ferocious- 
looking head with murderous tusks, and 
almost impossible to kill! 

The next morning before dawn we set 
out on our hunt. John’s .38 was swinging 
low in his holster; Hal was lugging his 
heavy artillery; I was armed with my 
light dueling sword, for which I had se- 
lected an extra stiff blade, which at the 
base, close to the bell, was as thick around 
as a fountain-pen. In my belt was a .32 
automatic, should the sword break on 
the thick skull of some charging boar. 

We began to climb in the dark, stum- 
bling over loose rocks, guided by Hal’s 
flashlight, working our way through bush- 
es and around cactus beds. The sunrise 
on that mountain-side was a magnificent 
spectacle ; then as we resumed our climb, 
suddenly we topped in our tracks: we 
had heard the unmistakable grunting of a 
pig, feeding not far from us. Since at 
that moment we were more or less hang- 
ing on with our teeth and fingernails, Hal 
using the big rifle as an alpenstock, we 
didn’t particularly relish the thought of a 
hand-to-hand encounter with an infuriat- 
ed four-hundred-pound wild boar. Look- 
ing inquiringly at each other, we shook 
our heads, ignored the grunts, and kept 
climbing. That moment I first realized 
the foolishness of our undertaking : true, 
in the gymnasium of the Los Angeles 
Athletic Club, I could easily have jumped 
over a charging boar — but here I was to 
meet him on his own ground. There was 
no question of jumping lightly, of using 
footwork ; it was all I could do to keep 
from sliding down the mountain-side. 

It was broad daylight when we ar- 
rived on a gentler slope, which leads to 
143 


144 


SWORDSMAN’S HAZARD 


the rolling plateau where the boars feed 
oh. wild oats that grow there. It was a 
perfect morning — but I would have en- 
joyed it more if my fear of being laughed 
at by my friends had not prevented me 
from backing out at the last moment. 

S UDDENLY John stopped, and peered 
in the direction of a cluster of small, 
misshapen trees that looked like petrified 
hobgoblins in the white morning light. 
I too saw some black shape. Hal looked 
through his field glasses and nodded. 
John drew his .38, aimed carefully, and 
fired. A few moments later we knew 
what a charging boar looks like! He 
came tearing down the slope with the 
speed of a running dog, head low like a 
rhinoceros, uttering shrill, squealing 
grunts. John and Hal jumped to one 
side, as arranged, to give me first chance 
with my 6p£e. Instinctively I stood “on 
guard” as before a fencing bout, knees 
well bent, the blade level, the sharp point 
aimed at the ferocious huge head. 

Like a flash I realized that I’d never 
hit a vital spot this way : if I hit his head, 
the blade would most likely break on the 
skull without doing any damage. I had 
no time for looking for a better spot to 
hit, so I put all my strength in one tre- 
mendous leap and jumped to one side. 
The charging boar missed my thigh by 
about eight inches. A rhinoceros is said 
to keep on going after he charges and 
misses, and a bull closes his eyes as he 
charges; but this boar whirled as if on 
a dime and was almost on top of me be- 
fore I realized it. This time, however, I 
stood higher than he, and I lunged. The 
sharp point entered behind the shoulder 
and penetrated deep into the body with- 
out stopping the boar’s rush — and the 
epee broke off as he kept on coming ! 

Dropping the useless hilt, I drew my 
■•*32 automatic and fired three shots into 
his body before he reached me — but it 
did not stop him. He hit my thigh a 
frightful blow, and over I went, tripping 
over a boulder, as I landed flat on my 
back in the bushes. The boar was im- 
mediately after me again, squealing with 
rage, about to lay me open with his mur- 
derous tusks. In that infinitesimal frac- 
tion of a second I saw the anxious 
faces of my friends behind the animal’s 
ferocious head, aiming their guns but not 
daring to shoot for fear of hitting me. 

Like a snake I wiggled to one side and 
pulled up my legs, ready to kick his ugly 
snout with my heavy boots and thereby 
hold the vicious tusks awav from my 


body a little longer. I even fired two 
more shots into his body, but then he was 
on top r of me. His tusks gashed my kick- 
ing leg from ankle to knee, tearing the 
leather as if it were rayon. The force 
of the next kick rolled me off the little 
ledge on which I was lying, and for a 
moment I was clear. That was the 
chance Hal and John had been waiting 
for: John’s .38 banged three, four times, 
without stopping the boar for a moment ; 
just as he was about to charge me again, 
I heard the heavy boom of Hal’s rifle. 

Then the boar was on top of me — I 
felt my leg double up and heard it snap 
as his full weight fell on me. The boar 
lay motionless, quite dead. Afterward I 
was told that Hal and John had found 
that all the bullets had landed, John’s 
,38’s, my five .32’s; but none of the bul- 
lets had stopped the animal. The steel 
point from my broken sword had pene- 
trated over six inches without hurting 
him. But it was the long 7 mm. bullet 
from Hal’s big rifle that had torn through 
the boar and killed him on the spot ! 

So there we were, all the excitement 
over, about a thousand feet up. My 
clothes were torn, my leg lacerated and 
broken, while I was bleeding from many 
other places. I was sore all over; and 
my friends didn’t dare move me without 
a stretcher because my broken leg dan- 
gled at a queer angle when I tried to 
move with their assistance. So John slid 
down the mountain-side to the ranch 
house for help. After I fainted two or 
three times from the pain of the rough 
going, they finally got me down — I don’t 
know how. One of the old Indian farm- 
hands set my leg while I was unconscious 
— or probably I’d never have let him do 
it. But my doctor said afterward that 
the X-ray pictures showed a perfect job. 

R eturning in Hal’s sloop was of 
. course impossible, so I had to wait 
until the next sailing of the Santa Cruz, 
the cattle boat which also belongs to the 
Caire family. A few days later the boat 
took a load of sheep into Santa Barbara 
— and had a mighty sick ex-wild-boar- 
hunter on board too. 

And although I did accomplish what 
I’d set out to do, hunt a wild boar with 
a sword, I heartily agree with everybody 
that I was one darned fool! One thing 
is certain: I’ll do my future hunting in 
the conventional way — and if men of ex- 
perience tell me to use a machine-gun, 
and sit on top of an elephant — I’ll fol- 
low their advice! 


I Said Goodbye 


“Out Went the Lights... 


to My Child" 

Her Skull fractured by 
Horsed Kick, Irmgard Giess 
is Saved, though Hospital 
Fuses Blow. 



“The still form of my little ten year old Irmgard 
lay on the operating table/’ writes her father, 
Peter Giess. “The great brain specialist stood over 



her in a cone of brilliant white light, his instruments 
flashing as he began the work that we prayed would 
save her life, save her reason and restore her sight. 



EVEREADY 

BATTERIES 

t 

are FRESH 
BATTERIES 

National Carbon Company ,. Inc. 
30 East 42nd Street, New York 


“But he had hardly started when the room went 
black . . . the fuses had blown. ‘Flashlights quick!’ 
barked the doctor. I groped to the door, ran to my 
car and got my big flashlight with five Eveready 
Batteries in it... The operation went ahead... 
and my little girl is getting well. 

“I’d used those batteries a lot, but they still had 
plenty of power left. When the lights went out I 
was sure she was gone. And I guess she would have 
been, if it hadn’t been for Eveready Batteries that 
were good and fresh when I bought them, months 
before.” 


Once More the DATE-LINE is a LIFE-LINE 



I WANT SOME NEW BATTERIES’] 

FOR MV FLASHLIGHT, ^ 

MR. WELLS . AND 
DADDY SAID TO 
BE SURE 
,-1 GOT FRESH ONES 


ALL RIGHT, 

n 

BETTY. THAT 

\ 

MEANS YOU 


WANT 


EVEREADY 






HERE YOU ARE. LOOK) 

AT THAT DATE-LINE. 

THAT TELLS YOU THE 
BATTERY IS FRESH, 

THAT YOU'RE GETTING 
THE LONGER SERVICE 
AND GREATER POWErLJ^' 
THAT HAVE MADE / 
EVEREADY THE 
MOST POPULAR BAT- 
TERY IN THE 
WORLD ’ 




| then why do people 
EVER BUY ANY 
OTHER KIND ? 


I DONT KNOW, BETTY. 
BUT I SELL 4,SAND 
6 TIMES AS MANY 
EVEREADYS.SO 
YOU SEE THE NEWS 
IS GETTING AROUND 







"NEWS COA'tS FIRST,” says Mis s 
Helen .Nolan# reporter, ’'eating, second. 
So I turn to , Camels. Food tastes better and 
digests easier when I smoke Camels.” 


HUMAN COMETS. Hugo and Mario Zacchini disappear deep into the 
maw of a monster cannon. A flash!— a crash ! — and these human bullets 
hurtle across the arena. As a test of digestion, this stands by itself. "We 
smoke Camels,” says Hugos^'Camels keep digestion working smoothly.” 


FIRST in the Albany-New York Outboard 
Marathon! Clayton Bishop says: "Camels 
are a swell aid to digestion — make my food 
taste better and digest easier.” 


PEOPLE CAN MEET TERRIFIC STRAIN — YET ENJOY GOOD DIGESTION. 
SMOKERS SPEAK FROM EXPERIENCE WHEN THEY SAY- 





' © 1936 
R. J. 
Reynolds 
Tob. Co. 


C&^(Lh 


| oii&cccj. 


Camels are made from 
finer, MORE EXPEN- 
SIVE TOBACCOS— 
Turkish and Domestic 
— than any other 
popular brand. 


M odern life bombards us all with a 
thousand and one shocks and ner- 
vous irritations. The strain tells on digestion 
...slows down the flow of digestive fluids. 

And it is to the comforting cheer and 
refreshment of Camels that one naturally 
turns to put more enjoyment into eating. 
As you enjoy your Camels at mealtime, 
the flow of digestive fluids speeds up... 
alkalinity is increased. You feel at rights 
with the world! 

Camels set you right! And they don’t 
get on your nerves or tire your taste.